My favourite Javascript library for widgets is Smartclient because of its wonderful showcase. Following on from my investigation into node.js I found this link,

• Announcing SmartClient Server for Node.js: free and open source!

This is amazing because it allows you to build beautiful data-rich sites without having to worry about configuring front-end web servers. It support JSON file databases and so could be implemented simply on Amazon Lightsail for example without the need to worry about configuring MySQL.

Unfortunately like many good ideas it seems not to have generated much traction because the last check-in on Github was in 2017.