What tools can help with local testing before deploying to Kubernetes?

The development space can be quite chaotic! Devspace is really solid once you get it set up, though it can be a hassle initially. Telepresence is quite popular too for live traffic testing. Just be cautious about resource isolation—are you considering per-developer namespaces or a shared staging environment? That choice will impact which tool works best!

I recommend Skaffold plus kustomize for setting up a local kind cluster. It allows you to create targets for easily managing the cluster lifecycle. Plus, Localstack is helpful for local AWS service simulation, alongside containers like Valkey and Postgres for other needed services.

For local testing, I stick with Skaffold. It doesn’t emulate full EKS or routing but does a great job spinning up projects in a cluster with hot-code reloading.

Docker Desktop is my go-to for local testing. It integrates seamlessly with locally built images, eliminating the hassle of pushing images or maintaining a local registry. It supports LoadBalancer settings and has built-in storage providers. I'm also keen to check out vClusters since it allows for porting entire clusters.

We use Tilt along with a local k3d cluster for our development. It's geared towards local environments, but we've also set it up to work with our infrastructure in a test account using specialized overlays in kustomize. While it’s a great tool, it might not be the best fit for larger teams or for applications that require AWS EKS traffic management. Still, it’s been working well for us!