wordpress and node.js

If you're planning on using node for being accessed asynchronously by JavaScript that's being served by wordpress, then it will make your life considerably easier to have them running on the same host and port. What I've done in the past is set up the following:

1. Apache + PHP + Wordpress running on some port (8000?)
2. Node + npm + ever other package you'll want running on some other port (9000?)
3. HAProxy with some rules listening on port 80 which will decide based on the path which of the two servers to send requests to.
4. A normal installation of MySQL and whichever NoSQL DB you pick.

Recent versions of HAProxy can also terminate SSL, if you want to do the same with HTTPS on port 443.

Here's a sample HAProxy configuration:

defaults  log global  maxconn 4096  mode http  option http-server-close  timeout connect 5s  timeout client 30s  timeout server 30sfrontend public  # HTTP  bind :80  use_backend node if { path_beg /services }  # Everything else to Apache.  default_backend apachebackend node  server node1 127.0.0.1:9000backend apache  server apache1 127.0.0.1:8000

Right, it's possible. The only catch is that Apache (running Wordpress) and Node.JS can't bind to the same port. In other words, you'll need to have Wordpress running on port 8080 and Node running on 80 (or other different ports).

1. Install Apache, PHP, Node, NPM, MySQL, NoSQL...
2. Configure Apache to listen on the desired port. (8080?)
3. Install Wordpress & Start Apache.
4. Start your Node application.

As for the precise steps involved to install those services, there are hundreds of guides online.

Yes it's possible, try express-php-fpm package.

You can use WordPress as backend only and Node.js for frontend.