Ask HN: Universal JavaScript + separate API project?

Javascript has a rich ecosystem around rendering and displaying webpages but there are other languages which are subjectively better at data modeling and efficiently implementing an API.

I've been looking for a project which successfully separates the API from the frontend and also provides a server-side render (aka universal, aka isomorphic).

Does anyone have a project like this they might be willing to link to? Every react/angular boilerplate project I've found has the API tightly integrated into the javascript!

Thanks!