You can run node.js server on a typical shared hosting with Linux, Apache and PHP (LAMP). I have successfully installed it, even with NPM, Express and Grunt working fine. Follow the steps:
1) Create a new PHP file on the server with the following code and run it:
<?php
//Download and extract the latest node
exec('curl http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/node-v0.10.33-linux-x86.tar.gz | tar xz');
//Rename the folder for simplicity
exec('mv node-v0.10.33-linux-x86 node');
2) The same way install your node app, e.g. jt-js-sample, using npm:
<?php
exec('node/bin/npm install jt-js-sample');
3) Run the node app from PHP:
<?php
//Choose JS file to run
$file="node_modules/jt-js-sample/index.js";
//Spawn node server in the background and return its pid
$pid = exec('PORT=49999 node/bin/node ' . $file . ' >/dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!');
//Wait for node to start up
usleep(500000);
//Connect to node server using cURL
$curl = curl_init('http://127.0.0.1:49999/');
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
//Get the full response
$resp = curl_exec($curl);
if($resp === false) {
//If couldn't connect, try increasing usleep
echo 'Error: ' . curl_error($curl);
} else {
//Split response headers and body
list($head, $body) = explode("\r\n\r\n", $resp, 2);
$headarr = explode("\n", $head);
//Print headers
foreach($headarr as $headval) {
header($headval);
}
//Print body
echo $body;
}
//Close connection
curl_close($curl);
//Close node server
exec('kill ' . $pid);
Voila! Have a look at the demo of a node app on PHP shared hosting.
EDIT: I started a Node.php project on GitHub.