Hey, welcome to the forum 
Can you clarify for me whether you were trying to run a server on Netlify? That won’t work because Netlify only serves static files. This post has a more in-depth explanation of our architecture: [Support Guide] Can I run a web server, HTTP listener, and/or database at Netlify?
That said, it is possible to deploy a React app on Netlify: How to deploy React Apps in less than 30 Seconds
Let me know how it goes and if we can help further.