IBM and StrongLoop have architected one the of most powerful modern node frameworks, called LoopBack. It requires minimal effort to bootstrap an API server. LoopBack has a client inside itself called API explorer, which documents the API and also provides API testing at same time. It is a strong competitor for the Sails framework, with ready to go structure, and is fully configurable when needed. It has hooks for Access control list (ACLs), mobile client SDKs, convention over configuration based coding, and of course the IBM backed team that will maintain the project for long term support.

You can get started with LoopBack at the following link: https://loopback.io/.