Pros & Cons : Web-based app or desktop app?

Would anyone have some information on the pros & cons of web vs desktop based apps?

I am thinking of getting one commissioned, my only experience is in websites & the difficulties you can run into if a high-traffic website has poor architecture; performance issues & high server costs....

This has led me to think about a desktop based app, rather than one which requires my resources to operate.

If anyone has any thoughts on the pros & cons I would appreciate it!

Thanks

forgot to say...

The "tool" would need to be undetectable by the webpage on which the form exists. This is why I thought perhaps something that utilized a common web-browser was the best method....

Also, the tool is NOT fully automated. The user would be browsing to the webpage & submitting the form.

There are definitely pro's and con's to both.

Pro's to online are that you don't have to worry as much about people hacking/cracking, and sharing your software unless you build in a registration manager. Online also allows everyone to always be using the latest version of your software so you do away with the need for people to reinstall.

Con's to online are server resources, cost, and have to consider IP issues IF you have people doing a lot of the same thing.

Either desktop or online based you may have to build out an IP changer, or abilities for users to add in a proxy so they can surf undetected in some ways.

Good luck

I will stick to what allseo said, both sides have their pros/cons, I guess the main thing here would be to consider what your application will or needs to do prior to decide if you want it as a desktop or web application.

Depending on what it will do you will then have a base to consider resources usage and define what would be best fit for it and for you.

Also you could even go as far as making a combination of the 2 by creating a website API and a desktop application, this way you can keep the sensitive things on your API while letting the desktop application do what you belive to be the heavy work of this also depends on what your application does but was just an example.

Depends on what the 'tool' is doing, obviously your not going to feed us your idea, but sometimes web apps are better, sometimes desk apps are better, some users will prefer web apps, while others prefer to use their own dedicated servers etc.

Depends what your app will do, but, in general i would suggest online version.

It's more easier to update, maintain, but on the other hand it's more expensive to maintain infrastructure for it..

I think web-based apps have much more potential since the user doesn't have to download anything new to get started interacting with your application.