In general, when you are developing an application, use the node command to run it.
This enables you to see stack traces and console output immediately.
For example:
$ cd myapp
$ node .
Tip: When running an application, you can specify debug strings that the application will display to the console (or save to a file). For more information, see Setting debug strings.
To run your application under control of StrongLoop Process Manager use the slc start command.
Doing this enables you to profile the app and monitor app metrics to help find memory leaks and optimize performance.
See Profiling and
Monitoring app metrics for more information.
With API Connect, to run your application and the MicroGateway, use the apic start command. You can also run your app using the API Designer.