Building on Azure usually means testing on Azure. Every change to a function, a container app, or a Cosmos DB integration follows the same loop: deploy to a dev environment in Azure, wait, check the logs, fix, redeploy. Add access requests, permission approvals, and shared environments that break when two teams test at once, and a one-line fix can cost an afternoon.
Today, LocalStack for Azure is open to everyone in Public Preview. It’s a local Azure sandbox where developers and AI agents can build, test, and validate Azure applications before anything touches live Azure resources. Access is self-serve and free for the duration of the preview.
Test Azure changes without waiting on Azure
Get feedback locally. Run supported Azure services on your machine and see the result of a change without waiting on remote provisioning or deployments.
Bring your existing IaC. Deploy your ARM templates, Bicep templates, and Terraform modules locally and validate infrastructure changes before they reach a live subscription. No rewrites needed.
Give every developer an isolated sandbox. No shared dev environment, no queue, no tests colliding with another team’s changes.
Keep dev/test off your Azure bill. Local runs don’t consume Azure resources, so you can test as often as you need. That cuts the non-production spend that’s hard to track and harder to control.
Give AI agents a safe place to iterate. Agents can deploy, break, and retry in a local sandbox. They don’t need live credentials, each attempt costs nothing in cloud spend, and they can’t make unintended changes to real Azure resources.
What’s in the Public Preview
This release focuses on the emulator core: high-fidelity service behavior, reliability, and compatibility with the workflows enterprise teams already run.
Containers: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Container Apps #
Serverless and data: Azure Functions, Web Apps, Storage Account, Cosmos DB #
Security and networking: Key Vault, Managed Identity, Private Endpoint (mocked where applicable) #
Infrastructure as Code: ARM templates, Bicep templates, and Terraform modules
We focus on the services typical enterprise dev/test workflows depend on, rather than claiming parity with all of Azure. The supported services page lists known limitations and workarounds for each one, so you can check coverage against your architecture before you start.
What Public Preview means
- It’s free. There’s no cost during the preview. Pricing will be announced at GA, currently expected in early 2027.
- It’s emulator first. Developer experience features such as App Inspector, snapshots, and chaos/resiliency APIs aren’t included at preview launch. Some may arrive during the preview, and others will follow GA.
- There’s a clear path to GA. Preview access ends at GA. We’ll give you at least 30 days’ notice and publish transition steps ahead of time.
- It’s built for dev and test. LocalStack for Azure speeds up the work before you deploy to Azure. It doesn’t replace Azure.
Get started in under five minutes
- Sign up for the Azure preview plan on the LocalStack for Azure pricing page . Already on LocalStack for AWS? Sign in with your existing account and add the Azure preview plan.
- Follow the Getting Started guide to start the emulator and run your first workload.
Help shape what ships at GA
Public Preview is where we validate service behavior in real workflows, so your feedback directly shapes what ships next. Share issues and requests in https://github.com/orgs/localstack/discussions. Next week, we’ll publish a hands-on tutorial that walks through a full Azure workflow on LocalStack.
[LocalStack for Azure Public Preview] · [Install LocalStack for Azure] · [Read the docs]