Local test environment or remote?

Question

Software testing

Hello.
Until recently, I was engaged only in small projects and immediately sent all the junk to production. Now I decided to learn more serious tools (Laravel) and, if possible, I would like to master development methods and technologies that I have not used before. One of these methods is a test environment, without which, they say, nowhere.
After estimating how this is implemented, I came to the conclusion that even with some Vargant without dancing with a tambourine it will not work normally, and when you reinstall the OS or change the PC, you will have to dance on a new one, so I decided to google and found out that sometimes remote test environments. For example, to have a development version of the site on the same host where the production version is located, as well as, respectively, two databases: for production and development. Close access to the development version with HTTP authorization or something more serious.
Basically, the questions are:

1. What are the pitfalls of a remote test environment?
   
2. Why do you choose a local environment over a remote one?
   
3. What environment do teams developing Toaster-level services choose?
   

Answer 1

something like this:
the scheme is generalized and simplified. in reality, everything depends on the product, and on people, and on how the processes in the team / company are built.