@tbowmo thanks for the quick response. I had started with Raspian Stretch.
To install node-red I used the following:
bash <(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/node-red/raspbian-deb-package/master/resources/update-nodejs-and-nodered)
I then installed sqlite3, and phliteadmin, and finally mySensors.
I just started over, and skipped the whole sqlite3 and phpliteAdmin, and it seems to be working great, thanks again for the response.
It seems we are going down similar paths. I had not touched my Vera in about 2 years, and started reading how things have changed. 2 years ago when I discontinued my Home Automation adventure, my thoughts were, I was not getting enough return on the time invested. The time spent, effort required and fragility of the whole thing was just not creating enough benefit. So I jumped back into Home Automation again about a month and a half ago, and am real happy.
I did abandoned Vera and went with Home Assistant (hass.io), Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5 (z-wave), and Node-Red on a Raspberry Pi and am real happy. I pulled out my old MySensors I had built and updated them, connected the serial gateway to a powered hub connected to the Raspberry Pi with hass.io, and they are all working fine. It is still not for the faint of heart, but it is so much easier for me then with Vera as the foundation. I'm able to fairly easily integrate, Z-Wave, Google Home Assistant, Cast Audio & Video, Hook hub, Rachio Irrigation, MotionEye cameras, and Tasmota flashed Sonoff devices to name a few pretty seamlessly.
With my current direction I am getting great results, I'm real happy with the way all the different components integrate, and the feeling that the fragility has been reduced tremendously is making this feel like it was the right foundation choice for me, and is going to be a part of my home for years to come.
If I was to write something like this right now. I would probably use the MEAN stake.
MongoDB
Express
Angular
Node.js
With NodeJS and express you can have it do your api then add AngulerJS and Web Sockets to those two and you will have a very resonsive Web based UI.
Here is were it gets interesting. Python, C++, or C#. Python works with Nodejs very well. Windows 10 under the hood has some big changes which will make it very interesting for development. The new Windows Universal is really new (it is not even released) and very interesting. I have seen it called Core and Windows IoT. I'm right now toying around with Windows IoT on a Raspberry PI and attempting to create a MySensors gateway. I have had some adventures, and am close to putting it away for now until the next build, but it could be very Interesting.
I would set it up to use the Vera http API first and then add support for Z-Wave, MySensors, then Insteon.