Depends on the servers and the project I'm working on.
- Sometimes I mount the remote servers file system locally over SSH (sshfs) so I can use my local development environment. I generally do this when I have more complex projects (eg quantity of files) and there's some prerequisites defined on the server (ie it's easier to develop on the server than it is to mimic the set up on my local machine)
- Sometimes I use tmux and vanilla vi / vim (I don't generally bother with plugins / config for editors so I don't miss them when jumping onto new systems). I generally only do this if it's small changes though. The kind of situation where it would be quicker to SSH in and make a few edits than it would be to follow a stricter development and deployment model.
- Sometimes I develop locally and then push the changes remotely (usually using rsync, scp, git). This is usually for new projects and where there aren't prerequisites specific to the remote host.
My preferred development model would be 1 (as it's ridiculously lazy), then 3 (as it better follows sane development and deployment models). But sometimes a job simply requires you to make quick edits via vi; and thankfully I feel as at home in vi as I do with most GUI text editors.
Just to add, there's only two config files I ever need to worry about:
.tmux.conf which I only put on a small handful of development machines where I'd like detachable sessions from multiple client (eg home/work/etc). But generally I will run tmux locally.
env_servers which is an epic environment script (like .bashrc) that I can call in as and when and it has a whole stack of aliases, functions and such like optimize my workflow. I've also set up an alias on my local machine to auto scp my env_servers script to any server I SSH into. Thus keeping env_servers available and up-to-date.