Highcharts runs entirely on the client, and works with any web server that can deliver HTML and JavaScript content. Whether your server is PHP, Perl, ASP, ASP.NET, Node.js or whatever, Highcharts is completely ignorant of it. The HTML/JavaScript files may also be loaded from the file system, which is the case in app platforms where Highcharts is loaded in a web component inside the app.

The best practice in integrating Highcharts may differ from system to system. You should follow the common practice for handing JavaScript on your specific system. Some prefer to serve a clean JSON or JavaScript file with the Highcharts setup, others to write the JavaScript setup directly to the web page. Data can be loaded in form of JSON or CSV files (see Working with data in the left menu), or printed inline in the chart setup. When working with a databased powered backend, it may be cleaner to have your server system serve JSON or CSV files.

For a live connection to the server, you may set up the web page to load new data over XHR or set up direct communications using WebSockets. With the new data arriving in the browser, the chart can be kept updated through various dynamic endpoints like Series.addPoint(), Point.update(), Chart.addSeries(), Chart.update() etc.

Before you start to set up a complex backend, you may want to check out whether someone has created a wrapper for your specific system.