With tools such as Node.JS (or Python Bottle, Haskell Yesod, etc) you simply pull your code from git, run it, and it has its own webserver included that handles routing w/o looking at a filesystem and direct execution of code instead of passing a file; which all is nice for performance.
I know. I understand. The reason for the success of PHP is that it runs on cheap shared hosting. If you want to replace PHP you need to fill that gap first, or, make it at least as "convenient" as PHP.
With tools such as Node.JS (or Python Bottle, Haskell Yesod, etc) you simply pull your code from git, run it, and it has its own webserver included that handles routing w/o looking at a filesystem and direct execution of code instead of passing a file; which all is nice for performance.