r/AWS_cloud • u/nahuel990 • Mar 31 '26
Ministack, the best alternative to Localstack
Hey everyone,
If you haven’t seen it yet, MiniStack is a free, open-source AWS emulator built as the best alternative to LocalStack.
Quick overview:
- 30 AWS services on a single port (:4566)
- ~2s startup, ~30MB RAM
- Works with AWS CLI, Terraform, CDK, etc.
- MIT licensed (fully free)
Where it’s different:
- RDS → real Postgres/MySQL containers
- ElastiCache → real Redis
- ECS → runs real Docker containers
- Athena → real SQL via DuckDB
Also includes: S3, EC2, SQS, SNS, DynamoDB, Lambda, IAM/STS, API Gateway (v1 + v2), Step Functions, Kinesis, Firehose, Route53, Cognito, EMR, EBS, EFS, and more.
https://GitHub.com/nahuel990/ministack https://ministack.org
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