Gradient Pulse
A premium hero progress bar with a glowing leading edge that pulses gently. The trailing gradient shimmer creates a "comet" feel — perfect for app launchers, splash screens, and SaaS dashboards.
Gradient Pulse the 6th of 12 designs in the 12 CSS Progress Bar Designs collection. The design is implemented in pure CSS — no JavaScript required. Copy the HTML and CSS panels below into your project. Because the demo is pure CSS, it works in any framework or templating engine you happen to use. The design honours prefers-reduced-motion and uses real semantic markup, so it ships accessibility-ready out of the box.
Live preview
The code
<div
class="pb-pulse"
role="progressbar"
aria-valuenow="48"
aria-valuemin="0"
aria-valuemax="100"
aria-label="Sync progress"
>
<div class="pb-pulse-head">
<strong>Syncing your workspace</strong>
<span class="pb-pulse-pct">48%</span>
</div>
<div class="pb-pulse-rail">
<div class="pb-pulse-fill" style="--pb-pulse-w: 48%">
<span class="pb-pulse-edge" aria-hidden="true"></span>
</div>
</div>
</div> .pb-pulse {
width: 260px;
display: grid;
gap: 8px;
font-family: system-ui, sans-serif;
}
.pb-pulse-head {
display: flex;
justify-content: space-between;
align-items: baseline;
color: #f0eeff;
font-size: 13px;
}
.pb-pulse-head strong {
font-weight: 600;
}
.pb-pulse-pct {
font-family: "JetBrains Mono", monospace;
color: #c4b5fd;
font-size: 12px;
font-weight: 700;
font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums;
}
.pb-pulse-rail {
height: 6px;
background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.06);
border-radius: 99px;
overflow: hidden;
position: relative;
}
.pb-pulse-fill {
position: relative;
width: var(--pb-pulse-w, 0%);
height: 100%;
background: linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(124, 108, 255, 0.25) 0%, #7c6cff 60%, #c4b5fd 100%);
border-radius: inherit;
transition: width 0.5s cubic-bezier(0.5, 0, 0.3, 1.2);
}
.pb-pulse-edge {
position: absolute;
right: -4px;
top: -2px;
bottom: -2px;
width: 10px;
background: radial-gradient(circle, #fff 0%, rgba(196, 181, 253, 0.55) 60%, transparent 80%);
border-radius: 50%;
animation: pbPulseGlow 1.4s ease-in-out infinite;
}
@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
.pb-pulse-edge {
animation: none;
}
}
@keyframes pbPulseGlow {
0%, 100% { opacity: 0.6; transform: scale(1); }
50% { opacity: 1; transform: scale(1.25); }
}