>>I'll stick my neck out and suggest nodejs as a possible alternative.
+1
Simple, easily deployed, extremely reliable, scales very well. Plus the .js is very legible to a VFPer. There are a couple of known memory leak snafus when under load, but that's a small price to pay for the benefits of KISS.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1