For PHP - Silex is really awesome. You get the minimal app controller/router similar to Express. And you can pick and choose Symfony2 (and other) components to

For PHP - Silex is really awesome. You get the minimal app controller/router similar to Express. And you can pick and choose Symfony2 (and other) components to add. It makes putting together an API for your front-end a snap. For those interested in this approach, I've put together a boilerplate called PHANG that combines Silex and AngularJS: https://github.com/ErikAugust/phang https://github.com/ErikAugust/phang