I'm unsing Laravel. I think any framework you are familiar with will do. I'm using frameworks even for single page application, cuz you never know how it turned.

I think the danger of "hug of death" is overblown. Hardware gets more powerful over time, and bandwidth expands. I had a project with about 60k unique users per day, and that traffic lasted for several weeks. I didn't take any special measures, although I was prepared to switch to a more powerful server.

I'd be worried about what to do to get to 60k users. :)