LocalEmu

A free, open-source AWS cloud emulator.

Run AWS services locally. No account. No token. No sign-up.

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What is LocalEmu?

LocalEmu emulates 132 AWS services on your machine. Use the same AWS CLI, boto3, Terraform, or CDK you already know - just point to localhost:4566.

Build and test against AWS APIs from your laptop with no account, no credentials, no internet. The iteration loop is seconds instead of minutes; you can break, reset, and rebuild as often as you want at zero cost.

Where it counts, the behavior is real, not stubbed: Lambda runs your code in the official AWS runtime images, EC2 instances are real containers on a real VPC with security groups enforced by actual packet filtering, RDS is a real PostgreSQL or MySQL you can open a connection to, and (with IAM_ENFORCEMENT=1) your identity and resource policies actually deny.

Install

pip install localemu

That's it. No Java. No tokens. No accounts. Docker is required for services that emulate by running a real engine in a sidecar (Lambda, ECS, EKS via k3d, RDS, OpenSearch, EC2). Everything else is pure Python and needs no Docker.

pip install localemu[runtime] still works too - every package that used to live behind that extra is now a plain dependency of the base package, so both commands install the exact same thing. The extra is kept only for backward compatibility with existing scripts and will be removed in a future release, at which point pip install localemu will be the only documented form.

Start

# Foreground (see the banner and logs)
localemu start

# Detached mode (runs in background)
localemu start -d

# Custom port
localemu start --port 4567

# Stop
localemu stop

Use

LocalEmu ships awsemu - a drop-in replacement for the AWS CLI that automatically points to LocalEmu. No configuration needed:

# S3
awsemu s3 mb s3://my-bucket
awsemu s3 cp file.txt s3://my-bucket/

# DynamoDB
awsemu dynamodb create-table --table-name Users \
  --key-schema AttributeName=id,KeyType=HASH \
  --attribute-definitions AttributeName=id,AttributeType=S \
  --billing-mode PAY_PER_REQUEST

# SQS
awsemu sqs create-queue --queue-name my-queue

# Lambda
awsemu lambda create-function --function-name hello \
  --runtime python3.12 --handler handler.handler \
  --role arn:aws:iam::000000000000:role/role \
  --zip-file fileb://function.zip

# Any of the 132 supported services...
awsemu ecs create-cluster --cluster-name my-cluster
awsemu rds describe-db-instances
awsemu cognito-idp create-user-pool --pool-name my-pool

awsemu sets credentials, region, and endpoint automatically. You can also use the standard AWS CLI, boto3, Terraform, CDK, or Pulumi - just point to http://localhost:4566.

Documentation & examples

The full documentation lives at localemu.cloud/docs: prerequisites, install guide, per-service API reference, and end-to-end use case walkthroughs.

For runnable code, clone the companion examples repository:

git clone https://github.com/localemu/localemu-examples

It ships self-contained tutorials covering common patterns: public + private VPC with EC2 / nginx / NACL, image pipelines, scheduled jobs, IAM least-privilege drills, Step Functions sagas, EKS + kubectl, chaos resilience tests, and more.

Explore

# List all supported services
localemu services

# Show operations for a specific service
localemu services s3
localemu services lambda
localemu services dynamodb

# Check running services
localemu status

# Stop
localemu stop

Dashboard

LocalEmu includes a built-in web dashboard for monitoring and exploring your local AWS environment in real time.

http://localhost:4566/_localemu/dashboard

The dashboard shows:

• Service overview with resource counts and status indicators for all active services
• Resource drill-down: click any service to see tables, buckets, queues, functions, instances, and more
• S3 object browser and DynamoDB item viewer with click-through navigation
• CloudTrail event history with expandable request/response details
• Live activity feed showing API calls as they happen, filterable by service

The dashboard starts automatically with LocalEmu. No configuration needed.

Simulation Features

Test real AWS behavior locally with opt-in feature flags:

# IAM policy enforcement (full AWS evaluation algorithm, see section below)
IAM_ENFORCEMENT=1 localemu start

# API throttling simulation (per-service AWS error codes)
SIMULATE_THROTTLING=1 THROTTLE_RATE=0.05 localemu start

# Network latency injection (realistic per-service delays)
SIMULATE_LATENCY=1 localemu start

# Lambda cold start simulation
LAMBDA_COLD_START_DELAY=3 localemu start

# EC2, ECS, and EKS use real containers automatically when Docker is
# available; no env var needed. Opt out via EC2_VM_MANAGER=none,
# ECS_DOCKER_BACKEND=0, or EKS_K8S_PROVIDER=off.

# Real RDS engines (PostgreSQL / MySQL / MariaDB in containers)
RDS_DOCKER_BACKEND=1 localemu start

Simulation features (IAM enforcement, throttling, latency, cold-start) are disabled by default; zero overhead when off. The container-backed services turn themselves off automatically when the Docker daemon is unavailable.

IAM Policy Enforcement

Run your AWS workload against the same policy rules AWS applies in production. Useful for catching permission errors locally before they surface in a deployed environment.

# Strict mode: deny unauthorized requests with 403 AccessDenied
IAM_ENFORCEMENT=1 localemu start

# Audit mode: log would-be denials, allow the request through
IAM_ENFORCEMENT=soft localemu start

# Bypass enforcement for specific access keys (comma-separated allow-list)
ROOT_ACCESS_KEYS=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE IAM_ENFORCEMENT=1 localemu start

What gets evaluated (full AWS algorithm, see policy evaluation logic):

• Explicit Deny in any policy → deny (identity / resource / permission boundary / session).
• Same-account: either identity-policy Allow OR resource-policy Allow is sufficient.
• Permission boundary: must also Allow (intersection).
• Session policies (inline or managed) passed via AssumeRole: must also Allow (intersection).

Policy elements

Element	Supported
Action / NotAction with wildcards * ?	✅
Resource / NotResource ARN matching	✅
Principal / NotPrincipal (AWS / Service / Federated / CanonicalUser)	✅
IAM policy variables: ${aws:username}, ${aws:userid}, ${aws:PrincipalTag/*}	✅
String / Numeric / Date / IpAddress / Bool / Arn / Null operators	✅
IfExists suffix	✅
ForAllValues: / ForAnyValue: set operators	✅

Condition context keys populated per request

aws:PrincipalArn, aws:PrincipalAccount, aws:PrincipalType, aws:SourceIp, aws:CurrentTime, aws:EpochTime, aws:SecureTransport (from TLS scheme), aws:UserAgent, aws:RequestedRegion, aws:username, aws:userid, aws:PrincipalTag/*, aws:RequestTag/*, aws:TagKeys, and aws:MultiFactorAuthPresent (set to "true" only when the caller's session was minted by AssumeRole / GetSessionToken with --serial-number, otherwise absent per AWS spec).

Temporary-credential validation: temporary access keys (ASIA* / LSIA*) must include an X-Amz-Security-Token. Expired sessions return ExpiredTokenException.

Limitations

• Cross-account calls (caller account ≠ resource owner account) are currently treated as same-account. LocalEmu defaults to a single account so this rarely matters; if you emulate multi-account IAM flows, enforcement will be more permissive than AWS.
• Service-principal grants on resource policies (e.g. Principal: {Service: lambda.amazonaws.com}) are not auto-matched for internal service-to-service calls; use AWS principals or * for now.

132 Supported Services

Run localemu services to see the full list. Key services include: ACM, API Gateway, AppSync, Athena, Backup, Batch, Bedrock, CloudFormation, CloudFront, CloudTrail, CloudWatch, CodeBuild, CodeCommit, CodeDeploy, CodePipeline, Cognito, Config, DynamoDB, EC2, ECR, ECS, EFS, EKS, ElastiCache, ELB, ELBv2, Elasticsearch, EMR, EventBridge, Firehose, FSx, Glacier, Glue, GuardDuty, IAM, IoT, Kafka, Kinesis, KMS, Lambda, CloudWatch Logs, Neptune, OpenSearch, Organizations, Pipes, RDS, Redshift, Rekognition, Resource Groups, Route53, S3, SageMaker, Scheduler, Secrets Manager, SES, SESv2, SNS, SQS, SSM, Step Functions, STS, Textract, Transcribe, Transfer, WAFv2, X-Ray, and more.

Python (boto3)

import boto3

s3 = boto3.client("s3",
    endpoint_url="http://localhost:4566",
    aws_access_key_id="AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE",
    aws_secret_access_key="wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY",
    region_name="us-east-1",
)

s3.create_bucket(Bucket="my-bucket")
s3.put_object(Bucket="my-bucket", Key="hello.txt", Body=b"Hello!")

Terraform

provider "aws" {
  access_key                  = "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE"
  secret_key                  = "wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY"
  region                      = "us-east-1"
  skip_credentials_validation = true
  skip_metadata_api_check     = true

  endpoints {
    s3       = "http://localhost:4566"
    dynamodb = "http://localhost:4566"
    lambda   = "http://localhost:4566"
    sqs      = "http://localhost:4566"
    # all services on the same endpoint
  }
}

Persistence

By default, LocalEmu state is ephemeral. To keep your resources across restarts:

# Local
PERSISTENCE=1 localemu start

# Docker
docker run -d --name localemu \
  -p 4566:4566 \
  -v localemu-data:/var/lib/localemu \
  -e PERSISTENCE=1 \
  --user root \
  localemu/localemu

State is saved on shutdown and restored on startup. S3 buckets, DynamoDB tables, Lambda functions, SQS queues, Secrets Manager secrets. Everything survives.

Save strategies (set via SNAPSHOT_SAVE_STRATEGY):

• ON_SHUTDOWN (default): saves when LocalEmu stops
• SCHEDULED: saves every 15 seconds (configurable via SNAPSHOT_FLUSH_INTERVAL)
• MANUAL: save/load via POST /_localemu/state/save and POST /_localemu/state/load

Check status: GET /_localemu/state/status

Docker (alternative)

# Linux
docker run --rm -d -p 4566:4566 -p 4510-4559:4510-4559 \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  --group-add docker \
  -e DASHBOARD_API_OPEN=1 \
  localemu/localemu

# macOS (Docker Desktop)
docker run --rm -d -p 4566:4566 -p 4510-4559:4510-4559 \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  --user root \
  -e DASHBOARD_API_OPEN=1 \
  localemu/localemu

Why --user root on macOS? Lambda, ECS, and EC2 services spawn real Docker containers for function execution. On Docker Desktop for Mac the socket is owned by root inside the container regardless of host GID, so the non-root localemu user cannot access it. On Linux, adding the docker group (--group-add docker) is sufficient.

Why DASHBOARD_API_OPEN=1? The dashboard at http://localhost:4566/_localemu/dashboard is restricted to loopback callers by default. When LocalEmu runs in a container, a port-mapped request from your browser reaches the container from the Docker bridge, not from 127.0.0.1 inside it, so without the variable the dashboard returns 403 with a message naming this exact variable. The pip-install path does not need it because localemu start listens directly on the host loopback.

Using the AWS CLI with Docker

When LocalEmu runs in Docker, use the standard AWS CLI from your host:

# Option A: set the endpoint once via env var (recommended)
export AWS_ENDPOINT_URL=http://localhost:4566
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY
export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1

aws s3 ls
aws dynamodb list-tables
aws lambda list-functions

# Option B: create a host-side awsemu alias
alias awsemu='aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:4566 --region us-east-1'
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

awsemu s3 ls
awsemu sqs list-queues

# Option C: use awsemu inside the container
docker exec localemu bash -c \
  '. /opt/code/localemu/.venv/bin/activate && awsemu s3 ls'

Tip: Option A with AWS_ENDPOINT_URL is the cleanest: boto3 and the AWS CLI both read it automatically. Your code works identically on LocalEmu and real AWS by just unsetting the env var.

Contributing

• Open issues
• Discussions

License

Copyright (c) 2026 TocConsulting and LocalEmu contributors. Copyright (c) 2017-2026 LocalStack contributors. Copyright (c) 2016 Atlassian and others.

Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE and NOTICE.

LocalEmu is a fork of LocalStack, which was archived by its maintainers. We are grateful to all original contributors.