Local Cloud: Build a Mini Kubernetes Cluster on Your Laptop Using Only FOSS

Why rely on expensive cloud credits or centralized clusters? In this talk, we’ll demonstrate how to create a fully functional, cloud-like environment using only open-source tools, right on your laptop. We use k3d / kind, ArgoCD, OpenTelemetry, Grafana, NGINX ingress, and Keycloak to simulate a modern production-grade cluster.

This talk walks through cluster setup, GitOps deployment, monitoring, service mesh options, autoscaling, and debugging: all from a developer machine. Perfect for students, indie hackers, and engineers who want to experiment with cloud-native architectures without paying for AWS/GCP.

• How to set up a Kubernetes cluster locally in minutes.

• Automating deployments with ArgoCD (GitOps).

• Adding monitoring, tracing, and ingress the FOSS way.

• Local-first workflows that mirror production environments.

• How to practice DevOps/SRE skills with zero cloud cost.