It looks like your Nginx configuration is missing some elements. I don't see the listen and server name parameters: server { listen 80 ; server_name myapp.com; location /api { proxy_pass http://api:3000/; } }

SailsJS is a full-featured framework with built-in tools to deal with business logic (models, services, ...). It comes with an opinionated architecture too. While ExpressJS is a lightweight framework on top on of the standard library. Itallows to set up a http server and to handle requests through a bunch of functions (named "middleware" for general purpose and "controller" for a specific route). SailsJS is more suited to build a full-featured web application (it's closer to Ruby on Rails). ExpressJS works better for micro-services, prototypes or if you want to have an architecture of your own (it's closer to Sinatra in the Ruby world).

It's always good to understand what happens behind the hood. If you don't have any particular deadlines, I recommend you to spend more time on learning pure JS/ES6.