Online server for desktop app - implement as web-server or custom socket application?

A bit of a generic question but let's say you have a desktop app that allows a user to connect to a central server and provides functionality like:

• Login
• Ability to auto-download profile data on login
• Download and uploading save files through the app

开发者_StackOverflow

A web-server (JSP/ASP.NET/PHP/etc) would do lots of work for you especially on the request-serving and threading front, but it seems a bit of a cheat for a desktop app to use HTTP requests like this.

All thoughts welcome. Maybe this should be community wiki?

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If you want to leave things open for other possibilities in the future, go with a web server. That way, if you decide to write a web-based version of your desktop app (or an iPhone/Pre/Android application), you don't have to rewrite your socket server. Almost everything can speak HTTP these days.