Node.js is a lightweight JavaScript runtime environment that allows building scalable network applications. It uses Google's V8 JavaScript engine and is commonly used for real-time, event-driven applications due to its asynchronous and event-driven nature. Node.js executes I/O operations asynchronously using callbacks without blocking and is well-suited for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices. The Express.js framework builds on Node.js to help create web applications and APIs in a more structured way.