hosting a java based server

i want to write a game that will utilize java applets as client programs and will run a server application to operate the game (control the game han开发者_StackOverflow中文版dle the chat etc) is there a way to host such an application on a free server, or does it require a specialized server? also is there a way to use php for tcp connection so it will receive the data and send it using tcp to the users (using a db to store user information from request to request) (for instance will forward chat massages)

If you are planning to use Java, make it completely on Java based, it will provide you the security and the performance would be much better. If you are looking for a Free Java Server, I can provide you the Java server to host your Java based application for free.

A little remark about PHP: If you looking at PHP as a possible replace for server-side Java, I think that's not a good idea, cause PHP may be much slower (up to 1000 times according to the benchmarks I've seen, but that might not be absolutely correct).

I've seen a free java hosting called 'MyJavaServer' and that's all that I've found at that moment (couple of years ago). So you'll have to figure out how much java hostings are available now. And of course, there still makes sense to buy/rent a dedicated java server.

Addition: You do not really have to use DB to store intermediate information, you could do that even with PHP through things like 'memcached'.