Ask HN: What are your experiences with Virtualised Development Environments?

Someone raised the topic at work recently. I'd always been a little against the idea, so had never considered the advantages. But for collaborative work, I suppose it could be very useful. It would also eliminate a whole class of bugs that only seem occur on your machine.

On the other hand, it could be extremely intrusive. Every keystroke can be monitored, and every new line is immediately subject to code review. You'd also relinquish all control over your choice of tools. Plus you're also at the mercy of the slightest networking issue.

So I wondered if the Hacker News readership have had much experience with the tech.

What tools did you use? Did it solve any problems that couldn't be solved with localised dev environments? Did it increase velocity? Did it scale well?

All answers welcome.

Thanks!