Announcing the LocalStack for AWS 4.7 Release

Introduction

LocalStack for AWS 4.7 is here, delivering significant enhancements that expand your local AWS development capabilities. This release introduces support for the Valkey engine as an alternative to Redis in ElastiCache and MemoryDB, aligning with AWS’s announcement to support Valkey across their caching services. We’re also introducing a new native Organizations provider that replaces the legacy Moto-based implementation, enabling improved multi-account and multi-organization management in your local environment.

This release also brings support for the AppSync Events API, a serverless WebSocket-based API for real-time event-driven architectures, along with notable enhancements to CodeBuild, CloudTrail, and EKS providers. These improvements continue our commitment to providing high-fidelity AWS service emulation that accelerates local development workflows and reduces the gap between local testing and production environments.

Get your free LocalStack account to access the latest features and enhancements in LocalStack for AWS 4.7!

How to upgrade?

To upgrade to LocalStack for AWS 4.7 using the LocalStack CLI, run:

localstack update all

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

docker pull localstack/localstack:4.7.0       # Community Edition
docker pull localstack/localstack-pro:4.7.0   # Pro Edition

Pin version 4.7.0 in your Docker configuration to ensure reproducibility.

What’s new in LocalStack for AWS 4.7?

• New Valkey engine
• New Organization provider
• Support for AppSync Events API
• New enhancements in the CodeBuild provider
• New enhancements in the CloudTrail provider
• New enhancements in the EKS provider
• Miscellaneous
• Deprecations

New Valkey engine

LocalStack now supports the Valkey engine as an alternative to Redis in ElastiCache and MemoryDB, aligning with AWS’s announcement to support Valkey wherever Redis is supported. To enable Valkey, you need to use the REDIS_CONTAINER_MODE=1 configuration variable while starting the LocalStack container.

The support includes:

• Ability to specify valkey as the engine when creating ElastiCache replication groups and MemoryDB clusters.
• Each engine is mapped to a default supported version (Redis 7.2.10, Valkey 7.2.10), ensuring DockerHub compatibility.
• Engine and EngineVersion fields in CreateReplicationGroup and CreateCluster APIs now recognize and correctly handle valkey.

This update enhances local testing capabilities for users migrating to or evaluating Valkey as a Redis alternative. Learn more in the ElastiCache and MemoryDB documentation.

New Organization provider

LocalStack now includes a native Organizations provider, replacing the legacy Moto-based implementation. This new provider introduces improved AWS parity and expands support for managing multi-account and multi-organization setups in a local environment.

The key features include:

• Creating and managing organizations, accounts, and organizational units (OUs) with full support for APIs such as CreateOrganization, CreateAccount, and CreateOrganizationalUnit.
• Basic CRUD support for Service Control Policies (SCPs) is now available, including creation, attachment, and listing. Enforcement logic is planned in a future update.
• Enabling and disabling AWS service access for your locally emulated organization, to replicate the behavior of EnableAWSServiceAccess and related APIs.
• Registering, managing and listing delegated administrators for integrated services.
• Managing tags on organizational resources like account, organization root, organizational unit and policies.

The current limitations include:

• SCPs are not enforced yet.
• Currently only SCP policy types are supported.
• Handshake workflows (InviteAccountToOrganization, AcceptHandshake, etc.) are not yet supported.
• Emails are not sent during account invitations.

Learn more about Organizations in our documentation.

Support for AppSync Events API

LocalStack now supports the AppSync Events API, a new serverless WebSocket-based API. This API allows clients to subscribe to channels and receive real-time events, enabling event-driven architectures. While fully managing connection handling, it exposes lightweight APIs for channel configuration, publishing, and subscription.

The features include:

• Creating and managing Events APIs via the CreateApi API.
• Defining channel namespaces for routing messages and isolating subscription scopes.
• Authenticating using API Keys and IAM Authorization.
• WebSocket support for subscribing to and publishing events over real-time channels.
• HTTP interface for publishing events to channels from backends or automation tools.

LocalStack also supports configuring code handlers for your channel namespace. Code handlers can be configured with or without data sources and also supports Direct Lambda integration. In addition, LocalStack registers two types of endpoints you can use to target your AppSync Events API:

• domain (<endpoint-id>.appsync-api.localhost.localstack.cloud:4566) which uses the localhost.localstack.cloud domain to route directly to your local environment.
• path (localhost:4566/_aws/appsync-api/<endpoint-id>) which is useful if DNS resolution to localhost.localstack.cloud is not available in your setup.

Learn more about AppSync Events API in our documentation.

New enhancements in the CodeBuild provider

LocalStack’s CodeBuild provider now includes the following enhancements:

• CodeBuild now assumes the configured IAM service role during builds, enabling use of AWS CLI commands without manual credential setup.
• Additionally, CodeBuild automatically sets environment variables for region, and endpoint URL into the build container. The endpoint URL is configured to point to the LocalStack container, allowing jobs to access other emulated AWS services.

New enhancements in the CloudTrail provider

LocalStack’s CloudTrail provider now includes the following enhancements:

• CloudTrail now delivers log delivery notifications to SNS after logs are written to S3 when SnsTopicName parameter in CreateTrail or UpdateTrail APIs is provided.
• CloudTrail events now contain the populated requestParameters and responseElements fields for most events.

New enhancements in the EKS provider

LocalStack’s EKS provider now includes the following enhancements:

• Support for k8s version 1.33 is now available. The default version also changed to 1.33
• EKS Load Balancer Controller with target-mode set to ip is now supported.
• Support for DescribeClusterVersions API for improved compatibility with IaC tooling.

Miscellaneous

• Kinesis provider has been upgraded to use kinesis-mock version 0.4.13.
• DynamoDB provider has been upgraded to use DynamoDB Local 3.0.0.
• Hive version 3.1.3 is now the default for Big Data services, such as EMR, Glue, and Athena.
• Support for the cognito-identity.amazonaws.com:sub IAM policy variable has been added.
• Role ARN and session name parameters are now validated in STS operations.
• The UpdateKinesisStreamingDestination API is now supported in DynamoDB.
• Proper validation errors are now returned for malformed AVP policies instead of internal server errors.
• The GetTokensFromRefreshToken API is now supported in Cognito.
• The RSA_AES_KEY_WRAP_SHA_256 algorithm is now supported in the KMS ImportKeyMaterial API.
• Route53 provider now correctly maps FQDNs with trailing dots for ELB routing.
• Proper error responses are now returned for Lambda functions with invalid S3 code locations.
• The DeploymentCanarySettings property is now supported for AWS::ApiGateway::Deployment resources.
• Multiple VPCs are now supported for AWS::Route53::HostedZone during initial creation.
• MySQL RDS containers now run as non-root by default, with support for configurable user and group IDs via RDS_CONTAINER_USER_GROUP_ID environment variable (default: 1000:1000).
• Improved parity for EFS AccessPoint API with enhanced validation and error handling.
• The ipAddressType field is now supported in API Gateway REST & HTTP APIs, where the field can be set to ipv4 or dualstack, via the CreateRestApi, and CreateApi APIs.
• Updates to the AWS::SNS::Topic resource are now supported, including support for changes to DisplayName, TopicName, and Tags properties.
• DomainProcessingStatus is now returned and user-provided values are preserved when creating Elasticsearch domains via the CreateElasticsearchDomain API.
• The Name and OpenTableFormatInput parameters are now supported in the Glue CreateTable API, and TableInput is treated as optional in parity with AWS behavior.
• Improved support for non-default account IDs in API Gateway v2, AppSync, CodePipeline, Cognito, ELBv2, IoT, and Route53.
• Improved appsync-utils JS package management. The library will now stay up to date by default. It was previously required to use APPSYNC_JS_LIBS_VERSION=refresh to update the library.

Deprecations

• MWAA support for Airflow versions v2.4.3, v2.5.1, and v2.6.3 is deprecated and will be retired after December 30, 2025.
• APPSYNC_JS_LIBS_VERSION=latest and APPSYNC_JS_LIBS_VERSION=refresh are no longer supported. Use a tagged version or commit from appsync-utils instead. Or leave empty to stay up to date.
• Lambda Debug Mode (Preview) has moved from the localstack/localstack image to the localstack/localstack-pro image. This change requires users to use the localstack/localstack-pro image with an authenticated account instead. You can register for free at https://app.localstack.cloud/sign-up
• EKS state created in version 4.6 or earlier using Cloud Pods or standard persistence will not be compatible with the EKS provider in version 4.7. Recreating the EKS state is necessary for compatibility.

Conclusion

LocalStack for AWS 4.7 represents another significant milestone in our journey to provide comprehensive AWS service emulation for local development. The introduction of Valkey engine support, the new native Organizations provider, and AppSync Events API, combined with numerous enhancements across existing services, reinforces LocalStack’s position as the leading platform for local cloud development.

These updates enable developers to test more complex scenarios, including multi-account setups and real-time event architectures, while maintaining the performance and reliability expected from production-grade applications. Upgrade to LocalStack for AWS 4.7 today to leverage these new capabilities and continue building cloud applications with confidence, speed, and precision in your local environment.