Floci – A free, open-source local AWS emulator

(github.com)

118 points | by shaicoleman 7 hours ago

10 comments

  • cebert 4 hours ago
    Cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure should offer local emulators for development. This would encourage developers to utilize their services more.

    I currently work with several AWS serverless stacks that are challenging or even impossible to integration test locally. While Localstack provide a decent solution, it seems like a service that AWS should offer to enhance the developer experience. They’d also be in the best position to keep it current.

    • LTL_FTC 29 minutes ago
      Microsoft used to with their Azure Service Dev Kit. the ASDK was a single-node "sandbox" meant to emulate the entire Azure cloud locally. They may have something similar now but paired back
    • hmartin 2 hours ago
      They should... put work into sacrificing revenue?
      • bensyverson 2 hours ago
        If you have a local “digital twin” of the service, it makes it much easier to develop against using AI. This would likely drive adoption.
      • borplk 2 hours ago
        It's not clear that it would be a net-negative on the revenue.

        It could encourage more development and adoption and lead to being a net-positive for the revenue.

        • hmartin 1 hour ago
          It's a fair point but iff you neglect that the overwhelming revenue drivers for these services are large corps who are already locked-in. Devx doesn't matter at all once you're there.

          The myopathy among us "online people" is assuming number of voices here and elsewhere correlate to revenue.

          It does not.

  • QGQBGdeZREunxLe 6 hours ago
    > LocalStack's community edition sunset in March 2026 — requiring auth tokens, dropping CI support, and freezing security updates. Floci is the no-strings-attached alternative.
  • mhitza 4 hours ago
    This project would be comical if it takes off. In Romanian this name means "a small pile of hair", but informally it's only used as a synonym for pubic hair.
    • Telemakhos 4 hours ago
      In Latin it's a tuft of wool, best known for expressions of valuelessness like "flocci non facio," meaning 'I don't consider it worth a tuft of wool.'
  • operator_nil 4 hours ago
    This is exactly what I was waiting for.

    Although I love localstack and am grateful for what they have done, I always thought that an open community-driven solution would be much more suitable and opens a lot of doors for AWS engineers to contribute back. I’m certain that it’s on their best interest to do so (specially as many of their popular products have local versions)

    It’s a no-brainer to me as AI adoption continues to increase: local-first integration testing is a must and teams that are equipped to do so will be ahead of everyone else

    • zach_vantio 3 hours ago
      100% this. especially with agentic workflows actually mutating state now. local testing is the only safe way to see what happens when a model hallucinates a table drop without burning an actual staging database.
  • banditelol 4 hours ago
    Cool, I've tried localstack before and cant wait to give it a try

    Anyway, do anyone know if there're similar stuff but for gcp? So far https://github.com/goccy/bigquery-emulator helped me a lot in emulating bigquery behaviour, but I cant find emulator for the whole gcp environment.

  • kay_o 5 hours ago
    is all of this is vibe coded?
    • spzb 5 hours ago
      Can't say for sure but the first commit was only four days ago and has a gitignore mentioning to Claude so probably yes. https://github.com/hectorvent/floci/blob/main/.gitignore
    • zipping1549 5 hours ago
      https://github.com/hectorvent/floci/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.m...

      Mentions CLAUDE.md and didn't even bother deleting it.

    • manx 4 hours ago
      What matters more is if there is good QA.
    • asteroidburger 5 hours ago
      Does it matter?
      • natpalmer1776 4 hours ago
        It does to the person who asked the question.

        Whether their concerns are driven by curiosity, ethics, philosophy, or something else entirely is really immaterial to the question itself.

      • kay_o 3 hours ago
        I dont automatically dismiss ai slop but when its obvious this was barely reviewed and sloppily committed with broken links 404ing or files missing from git, then it is slop.

        Using llm as a tool is different from guiding it with care vs tossing a one sentence prompt to copy localstack and expecting the bot to rewrite it for you, then pushing a thousand file in one go with typos in half the commit message.

        Longevity of products comes from the effort and care put into them if you barely invest any of it to even look at the output, look at the graveyard of "show hn" slop. Just a temporary project that fades away quickly

        The commits are sloppy and careless and the commit messages are worthless and zero-effort (and often wrong): https://github.com/hectorvent/floci/commit/1ebaa6205c2e1aa9f...

        There are no code commits. The commits are all trying to fix ci.

        The release page (changelog) is all invalid/wrong/useless or otherwise unrelated code changes linked.

        Not clearly stating that it was AI written, and trying to hide the claude.md file.

        The feature table is clearly not reviewed, like "Native binary" = "Yes" while Localstack is no. There is no "native" binary, it is a packed JVM app. Localstack is just as "native" then. "Security updates Yes" .. entirely unproven.

  • conception 2 hours ago
    Is Eucalyptus still a thing?
  • SilentM68 3 hours ago
    If I wanted to follow a tutorial or book but could not afford AWS, could this tool be used as a substitute for AWS functionality?
    • conception 2 hours ago
      Aws has lots of free. What would you need to pay for?
      • boyter 1 hour ago
        Its pretty easy to step over those limits.

        Also localhost and presumably this are good for validating your logic before you throw in roles, network and everything else that can be an issue on AWS.

        Confirm it runs in this, and 99% of the time the issue when you deploy is something in the AWS config, not your logic.

        • SilentM68 33 minutes ago
          >> "It's pretty easy to step over those limits."

          Exactly, especially when people are starting out, don't have a clear understanding of the inner workings of the system for whatever reason. Jobs are getting harder to find nowadays and if during learning, you make one mistake, you either pay or the learning stops.

      • devsda 1 hour ago
        A credit card on file is required to use free tier and it is still a barrier for many.
        • russh 1 hour ago
          The real barrier for me is that I can’t set a hard spending limit.
        • SilentM68 33 minutes ago
          That's true.
  • robutsume 4 hours ago
    [dead]
  • caijia 3 hours ago
    [flagged]