floci

Floci does what LocalStack used to: it emulates AWS on your laptop so you can build and test cloud apps without an AWS account, real credentials, or a cloud bill. It stands up 65 services on localhost:4566, from S3 and DynamoDB to Lambda, RDS, and ECS. MIT licensed, no auth token, no feature gates. The tagline is "light, fluffy, and always free," and for once that is accurate.

This exists because LocalStack's free Community edition was sunset in March 2026 and its paid tiers now require an auth token. Floci is the drop-in escape hatch: same port, same dummy credentials, same endpoint patterns, so most existing setups work unchanged. It starts in milliseconds against LocalStack's few seconds, ships a 90MB image against roughly a gigabyte, and runs real Docker containers for services like RDS and ECS instead of faking them. Setup is docker compose up or a floci start command.

Anyone who tests against AWS locally should look at this, especially teams stung by LocalStack going pay-to-play. Solo devs and small teams get something free forever and lighter than what they are probably running now. Larger teams with CI pipelines will appreciate the Testcontainers integration for isolated per-test instances.

The catch: it is young, and an emulator is a promise about behavior. 65 services is a big claim, and the gap between "supported" and "behaves exactly like real AWS" is where local emulators always bite you. Trust it for development, but verify the edge cases against real AWS before you ship.