Depends on the backend platform actually. Apache CGI processes (PHP) are fire-and-forget per request. But for example Ruby and Node.js servers persist through r

Depends on the backend platform actually. Apache CGI processes (PHP) are fire-and-forget per request. But for example Ruby and Node.js servers persist through request cycles. It's important that any state is unique to the request, sometimes even the caches should be per request. Node.js has a package called piping that hot-reloads require()ed files. It makes interactive development possible. Checkout my backend and frontend interactive isomorphic starterkit: https://github.com/RickWong/react-isomorphic-starterkit https://github.com/RickWong/react-isomorphic-starterkit It hot-reloads Node server code and client code your browser.