Floci – A free, open-source local AWS emulator
83 points
5 hours ago
| 8 comments
| github.com
| HN
cebert
1 hour ago
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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.

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hmartin
16 minutes ago
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They should... put work into sacrificing revenue?
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bensyverson
7 minutes ago
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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.
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QGQBGdeZREunxLe
4 hours ago
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> 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.
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caijia
1 hour ago
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The vibe coding question is interesting but I think the real risk for projects like this isn't how the code was written — it's test coverage. A LocalStack replacement lives or dies by API compatibility. If the S3 presigned URL behavior differs slightly, your integration tests pass locally but break in prod.

What I'd want to see before using this: a compatibility matrix showing which API operations are covered, ideally verified against the official AWS SDK test suites for each service.

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mhitza
2 hours ago
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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.
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Telemakhos
2 hours ago
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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.'
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operator_nil
1 hour ago
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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

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zach_vantio
1 hour ago
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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.
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banditelol
1 hour ago
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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.

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kay_o
3 hours ago
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is all of this is vibe coded?
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spzb
3 hours ago
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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
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zipping1549
3 hours ago
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https://github.com/hectorvent/floci/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.m...

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

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manx
1 hour ago
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What matters more is if there is good QA.
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asteroidburger
2 hours ago
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Does it matter?
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natpalmer1776
2 hours ago
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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.

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kay_o
1 hour ago
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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.

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SilentM68
1 hour ago
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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?
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