Stop Paying to Practise Cloud.

Local Cloud Labs run a real cloud API on your laptop — no cloud account, no credentials, no surprise bill.

Learning AWS has always had the same tax: create an account, hand over a credit card, then spend the whole time worrying about what you forgot to delete. One left-running resource and a learning exercise turns into a real invoice.

Local Cloud Labs removes that entirely. We spin up a local cloud emulator in a container on your own machine, hand you a terminal with the real aws CLI already pointed at it, and let you work exactly as you would against production — aws s3 mb, aws dynamodb put-item, aws lambda invoke. Same commands, same output, same muscle memory. Zero cost, and your data never leaves your laptop.

Powered by floci, the open-source local cloud emulator.

Four Clouds, One Playground

Create a sandbox for any of the four in the Local Cloud Playground, and the app wires a toolbox container with that cloud's CLI straight to it — credentials and endpoints already configured.

🎓 All 10 beginner labs below are free for everyone — they don't touch your free-lab quota.

🟧 AWS Labs — Free (10)

Start here. Every one of these is free, forever, on any plan.

• Create Your First S3 Bucket and Upload an Object
  _{S3 · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🆓 Free}
• Create a DynamoDB Table and Write Your First Item
  _{DynamoDB · 4 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🆓 Free}
• IAM Fundamentals: Create a User, Attach a Policy, and Inspect Permissions
  _{IAM · 4 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🆓 Free}
• List, Copy and Delete S3 Objects with the AWS CLI
  _{S3 · 4 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🆓 Free}
• Package and Invoke Your First Lambda Function
  _{Lambda, IAM · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🆓 Free}
• Publish to an SNS Topic and Deliver to an SQS Queue
  _{SNS, SQS · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🆓 Free}
• Read Data from DynamoDB with get-item and query
  _{DynamoDB · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🆓 Free}
• Send and Receive Your First Message with an SQS Queue
  _{SQS · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🆓 Free}
• Store a Database Password in Secrets Manager and Read It Back
  _{Secrets Manager · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🆓 Free}
• Turn On S3 Versioning and Recover an Overwritten File
  _{S3 · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🆓 Free}

🟧 AWS Labs — Premium (8)

Where it gets real: indexes, dead-letter queues, event-driven wiring and infrastructure as code.

• Add a Global Secondary Index to a DynamoDB Table and Query It
  _{DynamoDB · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🔒 Premium}
• Catch Failed Messages with an SQS Dead-Letter Queue and Redrive Policy
  _{SQS · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🔒 Premium}
• Fire an S3 Event Notification into an SQS Queue on Object Upload
  _{S3, SQS · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🔒 Premium}
• Give Lambda Least-Privilege Access with an IAM Execution Role
  _{IAM, Lambda, S3, DynamoDB · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🔒 Premium}
• Prevent Lost Updates with DynamoDB Conditional Writes
  _{DynamoDB · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🔒 Premium}
• Provision S3 and DynamoDB from a Single CloudFormation Stack
  _{CloudFormation, S3, DynamoDB · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🔒 Premium}
• Ship a New Lambda Safely with Versions and an Alias
  _{Lambda, IAM · 5 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🔒 Premium}
• Trigger a Lambda from an SQS Queue with an Event Source Mapping
  _{SQS, Lambda, IAM · 4 tasks · 30 min · 100 pts · 🔒 Premium}

PS: More labs coming by this weekend!

How a Lab Works?

1. Create a sandbox — pick a cloud, name it, and the emulator starts in seconds on a local port.
2. Launch the lab — a toolbox container with that cloud's CLI attaches, already pointed at your sandbox.
3. Work the tasks — click-to-copy commands, one task at a time.
4. Verify — hit Verify Task and a real command runs against your sandbox to check your work.

Nothing is simulated. The commands are real, the responses are real — the cloud is just running on your desk.

Why you will Like It?

• No account, no card, no bill. Nothing to forget to delete.
• Offline-friendly. Once the images are pulled, the labs run with no internet.
• Real CLI skills. What you type here is what you type against production.
• Your data stays local. The emulator runs in a container on your machine and nowhere else.
• Break things freely. Delete the sandbox and start over in seconds.

Ready to try it?

🌩️ Open Local Cloud Labs →

Start with Create Your First S3 Bucket and Upload an Object — free, about 30 minutes.

💻 Get the LearnXops Desktop App

Local Cloud Labs run entirely on your own machine, so they need the desktop app. ⬇ Download LearnXops — macOS · Windows · Linux → Apple Silicon & Intel (DMG) · Windows 10/11 (EXE or ZIP) · Linux (AppImage or DEB)

Happy shipping,

Sandip Das
From The LearnXops Team