Try disabling VC over Tramp connections[1]: (setq vc-ignore-dir-regexp (format "\\(%s\\)\\|\\(%s\\)" vc-ignore-dir-regexp

Try disabling VC over Tramp connections[1]: (setq vc-ignore-dir-regexp (format "\\(%s\\)\\|\\(%s\\)" vc-ignore-dir-regexp tramp-file-name-regexp)) VC is quite chatty and assumes that filesystem operations have a negligible cost. Before I disabled it, VC was adding >1 second to every find-file operation over Tramp. I also recommend using the direct-async-process connection property[2], which significantly decreases the latency of async process creation. [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/tramp/Frequently-Asked-Questions.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/tramp/Fr... [2] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/tramp/Remote-processes.html#Improving-performance-of-asynchronous-remote-processes-1 https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/tramp/Re...