[cpg1111]

Well fullstack Javascript is pretty common, you can use express or Koa, and passport works well for auth. Really you could use any backend and be just fine, whether it's Python, Ruby, Go, Elixir, etc. Burger (BGR) stack is popping up lately too http://go-talks.appspot.com/github.com/gophercon/2016-talks/.... Additionally things like Redux and Relay make it very nice to communicate between React and your backend. Otherwise, just speaking ajax to the backend works.

[CraftThatBlock]

To get started on all of this, is there any boiler plates with auth built-in to take a look instead of reimplementing everything from the base up?

[mooshe]

You could use something like Django as an API for React to hit. It has user auth, and if you use django-rest-framework it works flawlessly with React/webpack

[xackpot]

Are you open to using parse-server? It has good auth API's built in.