How it started

As I approach my one-year anniversary with LocalStack, it's remarkable to reflect on the transformative journey we've embarked upon. The community I joined is not the same one it is today; it's grown exponentially, becoming bigger, stronger, and more vibrant. In this blog post, I aim to shed light on the incredible strides we've made in community growth, developer advocacy, and user support. We've also evolved significantly in how we present (ourselves) to our users, marking a year of meaningful progress.

While our journey this past year has been filled with amazing achievements, it's important to acknowledge that not every moment was rosy and celebratory. We encountered our share of hurdles, with some projects proving too ambitious to launch as initially envisioned. However, these experiences are not setbacks but stepping stones. What I really appreciate at LocalStack is the academic approach to starting projects: we pitch ideas, we present the plan, we discuss, we ask questions, we execute, or go back to the whiteboard to act on the feedback. Whatever didn't work in the past will come back stronger and better.

This has been one year in the rocket ship.

How it's going

For the looks of LocalStack

Let's kick things off with a bit of a time travel exercise. Picture this: as I was digging up some gems for this article, I took a scroll through our old social media posts. Talk about a 'throwback' moment! It was almost like flipping through an old family album, seeing our early design days, seeing my colleagues before I actually knew them. It's pretty wild to see how far we've come.

So when we have new releases, we no longer look like this:

But rather like this...

Don't get me wrong, they're both amazing, but just like in the world of software (and let's not forget rockets), each upgrade is leveling up - it just keeps getting cooler and cooler. This is also our way of showing how much we value the community's support and opinion, which are like rocket fuel, pushing us to soar higher and do even better.

For the numbers

As we look back on 2023, it’s thrilling to see the leaps our social media presence has made. Our digital footprint tells the story of our community's steady engagement and growth over the year.

On Slack, we witnessed a remarkable 265% increase in active members alongside a 105% growth in our community size. This surge reflects the dynamic conversations and collaborations happening among our members. We can only go so far with helping each individual situation, so we strive to foster an environment of helping out and knowledge sharing between the people.

YouTube has been another spectacular success story. Our channel's views skyrocketed by 766% to 28.4K, while the watch time astonishingly increased by 495%. These numbers don’t just speak volumes; they shout out about the engaging and valuable content we’ve been producing. Not to mention, our subscriber count grew by 386%, and we garnered 330K impressions, clearly expanding our reach.

In the realm of Discuss, our platform has been buzzing with activity. Over 550 new posts were created by more than 150 new contributors, generating a whopping 150K consolidated page views.

As Twitter/X provides a different set of tools to do analytics, we can currently say that we've gained 356 new followers since August and 273,5K impressions in 2023.

Since our first community blog post, a little over a year ago, our project has seen tremendous growth, surpassing 50,000 GitHub stars and over 194M Docker pulls. These numbers are not just metrics; they are a reflection of the trust and confidence our users place in us. And if you really want to be up to date with it all, you should definitely read about everything that's new in LocalStack v3.

For the bond created with our users

We've seen how the LocalStack community has grown with every milestone. Every step we've taken and every initiative we've launched has been welcomed with enthusiasm by our users. Open source contributors have become colleagues and acquaintances turned into supporting friends.

Expanding Our Reach Through Webinars and Meetups

This year, we organized 8 engaging community webinars featuring esteemed guests from Wing, FABR, and XO. These events were a great success, contributing to an astounding 145% increase in the size of our Meetup group. It's been a delight to see our user base grow and engage more deeply with LocalStack. Of course, we could go on forever about how much we like it.

Making a Mark at Conferences and Summits

LocalStack's presence was felt strongly across major tech events. We had the privilege of presenting at 10 key conferences, including DockerCon, EuroPython, PyCon APAC, SpringIO, and DevFest, as well as hosting 2 webinars with LambdaTest and Lumigo. Additionally, our participation in various AWS Summits across Europe and the Middle East helped us reach out to even more cloud enthusiasts and developers. I know we always say we're local, but in this case, we're going global.

Hosting In-Person Events

We went a step further in fostering community connections by organizing three in-person "Cloud DevXchange" events in Bangalore, Chennai, and Vienna. Collaborating with Docker, MongoDB, Labyrinth Labs, and AWS, these events were a melting pot of ideas, innovation, and networking. Additionally, we had the honor of being featured speakers at several gatherings, including the Enterprise Java User Group, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), the Elastic User Group, and various DevOps meetups.

Driving Engagement Through Content

Our blog became a hub of knowledge sharing, with 22 new posts that attracted over 60,000 views. Highlighting significant updates like LocalStack 2.0 and 3.0 GA, and introducing new tools like our Docker Extension and Desktop App, we kept our community informed and engaged.

Collaborating with Industry Leaders

2023 was also a year of fruitful collaborations with Docker, AWS, Cloudflare, LambdaTest, AtomicJar, and Pulumi, among others. These partnerships have been instrumental in expanding our reach and enhancing the LocalStack experience through tools our users already love.

Launching the Developer Hub

Perhaps one of our proudest achievements this year is the launch of the all-new Developer Hub. Featuring 7 tutorials, 21 application samples, and the inception of LocalStack Academy with 7 comprehensive lessons, the Developer Hub has become a cornerstone for learning and development for the curious ones.

Finally, I'd like to share something special with you – a collage that captures the essence of the LocalStack team's dedication. This late-night piece of art is a snapshot of our unwavering commitment to engaging, informing, and supporting our community in every way possible. It's visual evidence of the hard work, creativity, and passion that fuels our team's efforts to connect with each and every one of you, whether in person or virtually.

How will it go

As we set our sights on 2024, we're practically buzzing with gratitude and excitement! It's like our community's growth and our shared achievements have strapped a jetpack to our backs, propelling us toward continuous innovation. We're super committed to upping our game, deepening those awesome connections, and scaling even higher peaks together. And hey, we know we can't always be everywhere for everyone, but we're giving it our all and then some. In 2024, we're rolling up our sleeves to support you even better - let's make it a year to remember!