Announcing the LocalStack for AWS 2026.03.0 Release

Introduction

LocalStack for AWS 2026.3.0 brings significant changes and improvements to the LocalStack ecosystem. The changes include some important adjustments to how LocalStack is released. We have consolidated our LocalStack for AWS images into a single image requiring an auth token and switched from semantic versioning to calendar versioning. However, version 2026.3.0 also brings some important improvements, including the initial release of a new LocalStack CLI rebuilt from the ground up and important updates to EKS, CloudWatch, and ECS, as well as many other updates. Read on for all the details!

Single, Consolidated Image

LocalStack for AWS has historically been released as two separate images on DockerHub: localstack/localstack and localstack/localstack-pro. The localstack/localstack image was a “community image” that contained a limited subset of the full set of 100+ AWS services supported in localstack/localstack-pro.

As discussed in our announcement post in December, LocalStack will now be released as a single image. Thus, as of version 2026.3.0 and going forward, localstack/localstack and localstack/localstack-pro on DockerHub will both contain the same image. The supported services will be determined by the entitlements associated with your personal auth token or CI auth token.

Setting Your Auth Token

As of version 2026.03.0, an auth token or CI auth token is required to start LocalStack for AWS. You can get full details on how to obtain your auth token via our auth-token documentation and CI documentation. If you do not already have a LocalStack account, please visit our pricing page for options.

In addition to a substantial limited-time discount on our Base plan, we also offer a 45-day free trial of the Ultimate tier, as well as a free Hobby plan for non-commercial use that supports the equivalent functionality of the prior community image. If you are maintaining a community open source project, you may also apply for our free LocalStack for Open Source license.

If you wish to gain some additional time to determine which option best suits your needs, you may configure LocalStack to start using LOCALSTACK_ACKNOWLEDGE_ACCOUNT_REQUIREMENT=1. This will enable the temporary bypass of the auth token requirement until April 6, 2026.

Removal of CI Credit Limits

Previously, each pricing tier was associated with a limited set of CI credits that determined how many CI runs were permitted across an account. This often meant that teams felt limited in their ability to utilize LocalStack across their CI for integration testing. As of this update, we are happy to share that we have removed CI credit limitations from all tiers, including the non-commercial free tier (subject to our fair use policy).

More Details

For more details on this change, please refer to our announcement post and FAQ, pricing update announcement, and next steps guide. Additionally, for feature requests, bugs, or other general feedback, please utilize our new GitHub Discussions board.

Calendar Versioning

As you probably already noticed, LocalStack for AWS, along with most other LocalStack product releases, is moving away from semantic versioning to calendar versioning. The key takeaway is that each monthly release version will take the format of YYYY.MM.patch. Thus, since this release is the first March 2026 release it has a version number of 2026.3.0, and a subsequent patch this month would become 2026.3.1. For a more detailed explanation of the reasoning for this change and how it might impact you if you are pinning to a version, refer to our recent calendar versioning blog post.

How to upgrade?

To upgrade to LocalStack for AWS 2026.3.0 using the LocalStack CLI, run:

localstack update all

Alternatively, you can use the new LocalStack CLI discussed below, which will automatically authenticate you and pull the latest image when started using:

lstk

If using Docker CLI or Docker Compose, update the Docker image:

docker pull localstack/localstack-pro:2026.3.0

Please note that both DockerHub images (localstack/localstack and localstack/localstack-pro) are still both supported but now contain identical images.

What’s new in LocalStack for AWS 2026.3.0?

• New LocalStack CLI
• EKS and CloudWatch: Resource Groups Tagging API Integration
• EC2: Improved Support for CreateFleet and DeleteFleets
• Miscellaneous
• Deprecations
• Conclusion

New LocalStack CLI

We’re excited to share the initial release of a new LocalStack CLI called lstk, rebuilt from the ground up to improve the developer experience. This new CLI is currently available to work with the LocalStack for AWS emulator (LocalStack for Snowflake support will be available soon).

The initial lstk release includes the core functionality of our existing CLI. It already improves the experience of working with LocalStack for AWS in a number of ways:

1. The install package is a single binary installable via npm or Homebrew, which means there are no more concerns about your Python installation to run the CLI.
2. It dramatically simplifies authentication by automatically authenticating you via the browser and storing your auth token. That means no more hunting for auth tokens or trying to remember how to set them.
3. It adds a new Terminal UI (TUI) that walks you through steps such as authentication or setting up your AWS profile.
4. It offers better log viewing, which is off by default, allowing you to control when you see logs. The best part is that you can run lstk alongside the existing CLI without conflict, making it easy to take it for a spin. If you’d like to learn more about our new CLI and give it a try, check out the documentation or visit the GitHub project.

EKS and CloudWatch: Resource Groups Tagging API Integration

The Resource Groups Tagging API (RGTA) allows you to query and manage tags across multiple AWS services from a single API, making it easy to find, organize, and manage resources by tag regardless of which service owns them.

EKS and CloudWatch resources in LocalStack for AWS 2026.3.0 are now fully integrated with the RGTA. EKS resources (clusters, node groups, etc.) and CloudWatch resources are now discoverable via GetResources and other RGTA calls.

EC2: Improved Support for CreateFleet and DeleteFleets

EC2 Fleet APIs (CreateFleet / DeleteFleets) now trigger real infrastructure rather than returning mock responses.

  - Calling CreateFleet now spawns actual containers (Docker) or pods (Kubernetes) via the respective VM manager.   - DeleteFleets properly stops and removes the underlying containers when TerminateInstances=true — no orphaned resources left behind.   - Both On-Demand and Spot instance fleet types are supported, including mixed fleets requesting both simultaneously.   - Support for the libvirt VM manager is planned for a future release.

Miscellaneous

• Added support for EU sovereign cloud partition for the Enterprise tier.
• Managed Streaming for Kafka (MSK) now supports running Kafka v4.0.x and v4.1.x.
• Fixed AppSync’s GraphQL parser to match AWS’s non-standard handling of comments as schema descriptions, resolving description parity issues.
• The StepFunctions TestStateAPI now supports Parallel state with mocked results, allowing you to test parallel states in isolation without executing branches.
• In addition, the StepFunctions TestState API now correctly interpolate variables in JSONata-based states. Variables passed in the API call were previously
  ignored.
• IAM and STS services have been migrated from Moto to our own LocalStack core library.
• Managed Airflow images have adopted a versioned tagging scheme, allowing release updated images to be released without impacting users pinned to older LocalStack versions.
• Introduces the ability to run Kafka within a Docker container instead of relying on downloading artifacts from apache.org. This enables scenarios where users hook into a shared MSK instance.

Deprecations

• Due to the image consolidation, the ACTIVATE_PRO environment variable has been deprecated and will produce a deprecation warning.
• The default Postgres version was updated to 17 in order to address security vulnerabilities present in Postgres 12, which has reached EOL.
• Any state created with a version prior to 2026.03.0 will not be compatible and will need to be recreated. This applies to Cloud Pods, state snapshots, and PERSISTENCE=1. LocalStack will display an explicit message when attempting to load an incompatible state.

Conclusion

As you can see, version 2026.3.0 represents a big shift in how LocalStack is released. We believe it will enable our team to deliver the best platform for local cloud development to our users going forward. We greatly appreciate everyone across the community who has contributed to LocalStack’s journey so far.