There are two approaches: 1 - build your app as an extension of an existing http server. Start with lighttpd or nginx source and build out from there. nginx

There are two approaches: 1 - build your app as an extension of an existing http server. Start with lighttpd or nginx source and build out from there. nginx has a nice module structure. Perhaps your app can be just a new module. Both of these code bases are C and use event driven sockets. You might be able write your extensions in C++. 2 - Use a known solid http C++ library to roll your own server. Depending on the complexity of your app, you may end up spending a lot more energy going this route. My relay server for http://shellshadow.com http://shellshadow.com is C++. I had my C++ programmer look at the structure and methods used in one of the two http servers named above. We ended up not re-using their source (our relay isn't http protocol) but did get some useful insight for developing our server daemon.