[heynairb]

Isn't this architecture redundant? Why have two application servers in between the database and the browser? Wouldn't it be better to serve the page once and have the browser communicate directly with the api? Is this setup common? Is it really the future?

[svachalek]

Most large applications tend to be a constellation of servers anyway, with the advantages of individual scaling, updating, reliability etc. The disadvantages are roughly the same. So, it's optimizing the advantage of having more servers against the disadvantage of having more servers.