Accepting micropayment donations via Lightning Network - what is the most efficient / recommended architecture?

Question

The difficulty that I am experiencing at the moment - how to accept Lightning Network micropayments donations supporting (shameless plug): https://genesis.re/wiki#Plan_B

Zap / Joule:

I send on-chain BTC to lightning enabled wallet
I open a channel
I do not have inbound capacity to receive lightning payments, need to spend first

(two on-chain transactions and spending money first feels like too much)

Blue Wallet / Bitlum:

they say these are custodial wallets
I do not understand how do they work
is my account balance a cell in a database?

(feel free to educate me - comment section - in the inner workings of custodial wallets)

Bitrefill

This seems reasonable, created by a reputable organization:

https://www.bitrefill.com/thor-lightning-network-channels

If someone's looking to receive bitcoin, as tips or other earnings, this is a quick and easy tool to get started.

Maybe there is something better available?

Maybe there is a better way?

EDIT / UPDATE

Exchange sats on Lightning Network into BTC on-chain so to have inbound capacity?

https://lightningconductor.net/invoice

Use this form to extract credit from your Lightning Channel and turn into BTC. Enter the Bitcoin address you want the funds sent to and amount you want to extract.

https://zigzag.io (temporarily out of supply)

If you’d like to engage with the LN, you will eventually need to initiate some bitcoin transaction(s), lest you’d rather depend on some custodial third party solution (but generally, service recommendations are off-topic here). The best answer (and one that would be on topic) would be one that involves you running your own LN node. — chytrik, Jun 01 '19 at 20:37
@chytrik Running my own node and...? I'm running my own node via https://medium.com/lightning-power-users/windows-macos-lightning-network-284bd5034340 and it requires multiple steps, including spending money first (inbound capacity) in order to receive, that sounds counterintuitive. — Mars Robertson, Jun 02 '19 at 12:00
Gaining incoming capacity can be a hurdle to jump for new lightning users, but it can be accomplished in a few different ways, and the ease of UX seems to be slowly but steadily improving in regards to this. I don't have a recommendation for an architecture specific to receiving tips in an automated way though, sorry. — chytrik, Jun 02 '19 at 20:25
Lightningconductor.net should not be recommended. It's a scam site that has stolen from several people. Currently trying to find the owner to get my $. Please remove https://lightningconductor.net/invoice from answer. Don't have rep points to comment directly on prevous answer. — Demen Tira, Sep 17 '21 at 03:56

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 04 '19 at 14:43

I was able to signup and accept Lightning payment in 2 minutes: https://www.opennode.co/

OpenNode is the easiest way to accept bitcoin.

It was easy. Looking no further. And they offer API: https://developers.opennode.co/

I admit I've spent a little bit too much analyzing which VPS and what hardware requirements. The process of configuring everything from scratch is daunting, wish there was a 1-click install: https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/issues/3159

Something similar to: https://medium.com/lightning-power-users/windows-macos-lightning-network-284bd5034340 (unfairly easy, no excuses not to run a full node)