Node.js and MongoDB are being used together to build real-time applications such as analytics systems and chat servers, with the JavaScript nature of Node.js providing a natural representation for MongoDB documents in JSON format. The community support for Node.js and MongoDB is notable, with projects like Christian Kvalheim's mongodb-node-native driver offering a non-blocking, JavaScript implementation of the MongoDB driver, and Mongoose providing a richer data modeling library. A real-world example, Hummingbird, demonstrates how these technologies can be used together to build a production-ready application, utilizing Node.js, express.js, and web sockets, while also showcasing the benefits of using MongoDB with Node.js.