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I built a free, open-source alternative to LocalStack — CloudDev

#devops #go #opensource #aws

I built a free, open-source alternative to LocalStack — CloudDev

If you've been following the news, LocalStack recently ended its
free Community Edition. Developers now need an account and are
being pushed toward paid plans.

So I built CloudDev — a lightweight, 100% free, open-source
local AWS development environment. No account. No paywalls. Forever.

What is CloudDev?

CloudDev lets you run core AWS services locally on your machine
with a single command:

clouddev up
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It starts local emulators for:

  • 🪣 Amazon S3 — object storage
  • 🗄️ Amazon DynamoDB — NoSQL database
  • ⚡ AWS Lambda — serverless functions
  • 📨 Amazon SQS — message queues
  • 🌐 Amazon API Gateway — HTTP routing to Lambda
  • 🖥️ Web Dashboard — live service status
  • 🔍 IaC Detection — auto-configure from Terraform/CloudFormation

Why I built it

Developing on AWS is painful:

  • You have to deploy to the cloud just to test
  • Provisioning Lambda or API Gateway takes minutes
  • Accidental usage generates unexpected charges
  • Hard to test locally without internet

CloudDev solves all of this.

How it works

1. Initialize a project 

clouddev init my-app
cd my-app
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This creates:

my-app/
  clouddev.yml
  functions/
  infrastructure/
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2. Configure services (clouddev.yml) 

services:
  s3: true
  dynamodb: true
  lambda: true
  sqs: false
  api_gateway: true
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3. Start your local cloud 

clouddev up
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S3 server starting on port 4566
DynamoDB server starting on port 4569
Lambda server starting on port 4574
API Gateway starting on port 4572
Dashboard running at http://localhost:4580
CloudDev is running. Press Ctrl+C to stop...
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4. Use with the real AWS CLI 

# S3 — create bucket and upload file
aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:4566 s3 mb s3://my-bucket
aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:4566 s3 cp file.txt s3://my-bucket/

# DynamoDB — create table and put item
aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:4569 dynamodb create-table \
  --table-name Users \
  --attribute-definitions AttributeName=id,AttributeType=S \
  --key-schema AttributeName=id,KeyType=HASH \
  --billing-mode PAY_PER_REQUEST

# Lambda — create and invoke function
aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:4574 lambda create-function \
  --function-name hello \
  --runtime python3.9 \
  --handler hello.handler \
  --role arn:aws:iam::000000000000:role/test \
  --zip-file fileb://hello.zip

aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:4574 lambda invoke \
  --function-name hello \
  --payload '{"key": "value"}' \
  output.txt
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5. Auto-detect from Terraform

Have an existing Terraform project? Just run:

clouddev detect
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CloudDev scans your .tf files and automatically enables
the right services in clouddev.yml.

6. Web Dashboard

Open http://localhost:4580 to see live service status:

![CloudDev Dashboard showing all services running in green]

How it compares to LocalStack

Feature CloudDev LocalStack Free
Requires account ❌ No ✅ Yes (now required)
Open source ✅ Yes ⚠️ Partial
S3, DynamoDB, Lambda ✅ Yes ✅ Yes
Web dashboard ✅ Yes ❌ No
IaC auto-detection ✅ Yes ❌ No
Cost 🆓 Free forever 💰 Paid plans

Tech stack

CloudDev is built in Go — which means:

  • Single binary, no runtime dependencies
  • Fast startup
  • Low memory usage

What's next

  • Kubernetes integration
  • Cost estimation before deployment
  • Plugin system for additional AWS services
  • More AWS service emulators

Try it out

👉 GitHub: github.com/Jeffrin-dev/CloudDev

If you find it useful, please ⭐ the repo and share it with
other AWS developers who are affected by the LocalStack change!

Contributions are very welcome — check out
CONTRIBUTING.md
to get started.

Built with Go, Let's Get Started !

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