DynamoDB Local

Tablyne can talk to a local DynamoDB instance instead of AWS cloud, giving you a free, offline, no-credentials way to develop — and it’s the full feature set of the Free tier.

Why local

DynamoDB Local is Amazon’s downloadable build of DynamoDB that runs on your own machine. With Tablyne pointed at it you can create tables, browse and edit items, run queries and PartiQL, and try every workflow without an AWS account, without spending money, and without an internet connection. On the Free tier, this is the only mode available — cloud access requires a license or trial (see Licensing).

Starting a local DynamoDB

Tablyne doesn’t ship DynamoDB Local — run it yourself. Two common ways:

# Docker
docker run -p 8000:8000 amazon/dynamodb-local

# Or the standalone JAR
java -Djava.library.path=./DynamoDBLocal_lib -jar DynamoDBLocal.jar -sharedDb

Either way it listens on http://localhost:8000 by default.

Pointing Tablyne at it

In the connection bar, find the endpoint toggle — it reads ○ cloud when you’re on AWS. Click it, and you’ll get an input pre-filled with http://localhost:8000. Edit if needed, then press Enter or click ok.

The toggle now shows ● LOCAL (highlighted green), and the sidebar shows a banner with the active endpoint. Every command — list tables, scan, query, create, delete — now routes through the local endpoint. Changing the endpoint reloads the table list and data automatically.

Going back to cloud

Click the ● LOCAL toggle and choose cloud in the editor, or use the back to cloud button in the sidebar banner. This clears the local override and returns you to the selected AWS profile/region.

What counts as “local”

The cloud gate decides whether you need a license by inspecting the endpoint. An endpoint is treated as local when its host is one of:

localhost   127.0.0.1   [::1]   0.0.0.0

Any other endpoint (including a real dynamodb.<region>.amazonaws.com) counts as cloud and requires entitlement. This check lives in the Rust core and runs on every request, so it can’t be worked around from the UI.

Credentials with local

DynamoDB Local doesn’t validate credentials, but the AWS SDK still wants a profile and region to build a client. Tablyne uses whichever profile and region are selected in the connection bar — the values don’t matter for a local endpoint, so any profile works. If you have no profiles at all, the add-profile dialog hints that you can use it purely for local development.

Persistence and behavior notes

• The chosen endpoint is remembered between sessions and re-applied to the core on launch.
• DynamoDB Local applies some operations instantly that the cloud does asynchronously. For example, TTL and table activation are effectively immediate locally, whereas on AWS they can take time (see table settings).
• Region selection still appears in the UI but has no real effect against a single local instance.

Quick reference

Item	Value
Default endpoint	http://localhost:8000
Toggle states	○ cloud / ● LOCAL
Local hosts recognized	localhost, 127.0.0.1, [::1], 0.0.0.0
License required	No (this is the Free tier)

Next: create your first table, or read the local-endpoint learn guide.