> However if you are using a load balancer in front of a handful of node.js app servers, does this offer any advantage over just using an arbitrary port > 1024

> However if you are using a load balancer in front of a handful of node.js app servers, does this offer any advantage over just using an arbitrary port > 1024 Nope. It's only useful if you're using a single server, e.g. on a $5 DigitalOcean droplet.