You're right, you could separate them into two containers and build a networked API between them, and in many cases that may be the right approach. But I wouldn

You're right, you could separate them into two containers and build a networked API between them, and in many cases that may be the right approach. But I wouldn't completely throw this solution away yet (I'm the author of this solution, so I guess I'm biased). For example, if you want to call an NPM module (say Grunt) from and Java / Maven build, it may be easier to bundle this in the same process rather than trying to provision node in the middle of the task. Also, if you have existing Java libraries and want to make use of them as you migrate to Node, it might be easier with the shared memory approach (through ByteBuffers and TypedArrays) that J2V8 offers, than to try and pass the Data between services. This isn't meant to replace services, it's just another technology choice on the spectrum. And finally, I thought the problem of integrating Node and Java sounded challenging and cool, and I enjoy challenging problems :).