Meteor all the way

Not exactly sure, but I would deeply investigate the possibility of using Meteor, mostly because how easy it is to create web, desktop and mobile versions. The realtime part is also pretty much transparent when using meteor. So:

Frontend / backend: Meteor Database: Mongo (part of meteor for dev environments) Deployment: Personal preference Linode vps but probably not the easiest way to go about it.

It looks like I would go a bit off mainstream ;-)

• Backend: Phoenix/Elixir
• Frontend: React+Router5/Koa.js
• Database: RethinkDB
• Deployment: own DigitalOcean servers

Interesting question. I think Firebase is a great choice for these types of realtime apps. I will go with (React/Angular) + Firebase if there is sufficient budget.

Or a custom solution using

• React
• Node.js + Socket.io
• MongoDB and Redis

Regarding Deployment, I'll go with AWS/Azure/DigitalOcean.

I would go with the MEAN stack i.e MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS and NodeJS + socket.io or Firebase + AWS

I guess I'd go with the following:

• Frontend: React
• Backend: Meteor
• Database: MongoDB
• Deployment: AWS/ Digital Ocean

Remember that Meteor isn't a frontend framework, but a full stack platform that supports frontend frameworks like Angular and React.

I personally make much with Angular and Express. For deployment I have my own Root Server where I use Dokku for zero downtime deployment.