Home / Soft and Tactile UI / Frosted Aurora

Frosted Aurora CSS Template, Free with Live Demo

Free aurora gradient background template with frosted glass cards. Slow moving northern lights colors made in pure CSS. Live demo and HTML download. The example is Stillwater, a sleep and calm app.

Open live demoDownload HTML fileView code on GitHub
Frosted Aurora CSS template example: Stillwater, a sleep and calm app

What is frosted aurora?

Frosted aurora puts slow moving colors, like the northern lights, behind panels of frosted glass. The colors drift very gently, so the page feels alive without being busy.

It is made from a few big colored circles that are blurred heavily and moved with a long CSS animation. On top sit dark, semi transparent panels with backdrop-filter. If a visitor has asked their device to reduce motion, the colors stay still.

Good for

  • Sleep, meditation and wellness apps
  • Music and podcast landing pages
  • Event and night life websites
  • AI and tech product launch pages

What you get in this template

The key CSS

This is the part that makes the frosted aurora look work. Copy it into your own project.

.sky { position: fixed; inset: -20%; filter: blur(60px); z-index: -1; }
.sky span { position: absolute; border-radius: 50%;
  animation: drift 22s ease-in-out infinite alternate; }

@keyframes drift { to { transform: translate(8vw, -6vw) scale(1.15); } }

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
  .sky span { animation: none; }
}

How to use it

  1. Click Download HTML file above.
  2. Open the file in any code editor, like VS Code.
  3. Change the text, colors and links to match your project. Colors are at the top of the style tag.
  4. Upload it to any host, such as GitHub Pages, Netlify or your own server. It is one file with no build step.

Questions people ask

How do you make an aurora background in CSS?

Place a few large colored circles in a fixed layer, blur that layer heavily with filter: blur(60px), and move the circles slowly with a CSS animation. No images or JavaScript are needed.

Will the animated background drain phone battery?

The animation is slow and uses transform, which the browser handles well. It also stops for anyone who has reduced motion turned on in their device settings.

Can I change the aurora colors?

Yes. Change the three background colors on the .sky span elements. Greens, blues and pinks look most like real northern lights.

More Soft and Tactile UI designs