Bravura SDK launched in October 2025 as a general availability release. Since then, developers have been building with it — but we still get the same question: "What exactly do I get?" This article is the definitive answer. Here's everything that ships when you install Bravura.
GPU-Accelerated Rendering
This is the headline feature and the reason Bravura exists. Every widget, every animation, every transition in Bravura is rendered using your GPU via CUDA or OpenCL. If your machine doesn't have a compatible GPU, the framework automatically falls back to CPU rendering — no code changes required.
What GPU Acceleration Means in Practice
- Smooth 60 FPS animations on button hovers, transitions, and page changes
- Complex layouts with dozens of widgets render without blocking the main thread
- Real-time shadow, blur, and gradient effects that would stutter on CPU
- Automatic GPU detection — CUDA for NVIDIA, OpenCL for AMD/Intel, CPU fallback for everything else
The difference is immediately visible. Side-by-side with a standard Tkinter app, a Bravura app doesn't just look different — it feels different. Interactions are responsive. Animations are fluid. The app behaves the way users expect modern software to behave.
10 Professional Themes
Bravura ships with 10 built-in themes designed by professional UI designers. Seven are included in the Standard tier; three premium themes are available at Professional and Enterprise tiers.
Each theme provides complete visual consistency across all widgets: buttons, inputs, panels, menus, dialogs, progress bars, tables, and every other component. Switching themes is a single line of code, and every element adapts automatically.
Theme System Capabilities
Beyond the built-in themes, you can create fully custom themes with your own color palette, typography, spacing, border radii, and shadow styles. Themes support inheritance — extend a base theme and override only what you need. Dark and light mode switching is built in.
27+ Production-Ready Components
Bravura's component library covers everything you need for professional desktop applications:
Buttons
Standard, Premium, Compact, icon buttons, toggle
Inputs
Text fields, text areas, dropdowns, sliders, checkboxes
Data Display
Tables, lists, trees, progress bars, status indicators
Layout
Panels, glass panels, cards, tabs, split views
Feedback
Toast notifications, tooltips, dialogs, loading states
Navigation
Menu bars, context menus, command palette (Ctrl+K), shortcuts
Every widget is theme-aware, GPU-accelerated, and designed to work together. The ButtonFactory pattern lets you generate consistent button styles across your app. The command palette (available at Professional tier and above) provides a Spotlight/VS Code-style quick action interface.
Premium Components
Professional and Enterprise tiers include additional components designed for advanced use cases:
- Glass Panels — Frosted glass effect with adjustable blur and transparency
- Ambient Backgrounds — Animated gradient backgrounds that respond to app state
- Command Palette — Ctrl+K quick-action search across your entire app
- Toast Notifications — Non-blocking notification system with stacking and auto-dismiss
- Terminal-Style Logging — Monospace log viewer with syntax highlighting
Architecture: Thread-Safe and Built for Python 3.11+
Bravura's architecture is built on a thread-safe worker system that keeps the UI responsive while background tasks run. Long operations like file I/O, API calls, or data processing run in worker threads while the GUI thread stays fluid.
Additional architecture features:
- EWMA-smoothed progress tracking — Progress bars show accurate, jitter-free ETAs even with variable-speed operations
- Cross-platform GPU detection — Automatic hardware capability detection at startup
- Ring-buffer logging — Memory-efficient logging that doesn't grow unbounded
- Built for Python 3.11+ — Leverages the CPython performance improvements for faster event handling and layout calculations
Licensing and Distribution
Bravura includes a built-in license validation system. When you ship your app to users, the SDK validates their license against the Bravura license server. This means you can sell your own Python desktop apps with professional license management out of the box.
Distribution is handled through wheel packaging with one-line build commands for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Pricing
| Tier | Monthly | Annual | One-Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $49.99 | $499.99 | $1,999.99 |
| Professional | $99.99 | $999.99 | $3,999.99 |
| Enterprise | $499.99 | $4,999.99 | $19,999.99 |
Every tier includes GPU acceleration, the full theme system (7 standard themes), the core component library, responsive layouts, thread-safe architecture, and cross-platform packaging. Professional adds the 3 premium themes, glass panels, command palette, and priority support. Enterprise adds ambient backgrounds, custom theme development assistance, and dedicated support.
Documentation and Getting Started
Bravura ships with comprehensive documentation:
- 10-Minute Quickstart — Build your first Bravura app from scratch
- API Reference — Complete documentation for every widget, method, and configuration option
- Theme Showcase — Visual gallery of all 10 themes applied to the same app
- GPU Demo — Benchmark and visualize GPU vs. CPU rendering on your machine
- Component Catalog — Interactive showcase of every widget with code examples
- Professional Templates — Ready-to-use app templates for common use cases (dashboards, data viewers, admin panels)
See It for Yourself
Browse the documentation, explore the component catalog, and build your first app in under 10 minutes.
Explore Bravura SDK