check gulp-plumber

http://edge.adonisjs.com/ its like blade(from laravel) for nodejs there is also handlebars widly used here some stats: https://npmcompare.com/compare/dust,handlebars,marko,mustache,pug the best is what fits your needs and fast ;O

vue makes your life easier i made a quick google search here is an realtime chat based on vue and laravel: https://jplhomer.org/2017/01/building-realtime-chat-app-laravel-5-4-vuejs/

Webpack 2.x or Rollup

no its free when you selfhost

maybe check out ghost blog its nodejs

this counts more for designer

https://github.com/lovell/sharp here is the other one also for nodejs

check out https://github.com/oliver-moran/jimp (nodejs) no deps there is a other one but i forgot the name

here is the testing guide https://vue-test-utils.vuejs.org/en/