Based on a totally-not-statistically-significant-survey our team conducted, we are seeing that yes - many node devs are deploying to Linux, but developing on Windows. We support this scenario through remote debugging to any OS. Azure not required :)

This appears to be consistent with npm's data as well (see this infographic - % devs accessing npmjs.org http://blog.modulus.io/growth-of-npm-infographic).

We also try very hard to make sure that NTVS works well with people's existing tools and packages - so if you run into an issue, please let us know (or better yet, make a PR!)