Well fullstack Javascript is pretty common, you can use express or Koa, and passport works well for auth. Really you could use any backend and be just fine, whether it's Python, Ruby, Go, Elixir, etc. Burger (BGR) stack is popping up lately too http://go-talks.appspot.com/github.com/gophercon/2016-talks/.... Additionally things like Redux and Relay make it very nice to communicate between React and your backend. Otherwise, just speaking ajax to the backend works.