A VM/container setup is the way to go, with as much as possible shared from prod setup processes. Specifically, it should be very automated and repeatable to b

A VM/container setup is the way to go, with as much as possible shared from prod setup processes. Specifically, it should be very automated and repeatable to bring up an environment, either from the last working state (i.e. to boot the vm) but also to bring up a fresh environment - potentially following a teardown/destroy. I quite like Vagrant for this - it's multi platform, works across multiple providers (i.e. you might use HyperV on Windows, Joe might use VBox on Mac, Bob might use VMWare on Linux, Sally might use LXC on Linux) and has quite a healthy range of plugins to extend functionality.