It is protected under the GNU Public License and related to other versions of Emacs, in particular GNU Emacs. Its emphasis is on modern graphical user interface support and an open software development model, similar to Linux. XEmacs versions 21.2. The XEmacs maintainers are generally more receptive to suggestions than the GNU Emacs maintainers. Many more bundled packages than GNU Emacs.
Binaries are available for many common operating systems.
Face support on TTY's. A built-in toolbar. Better Motif compliance. XEmacs can be used as an Xt widget, and can be embedded within another application. The ability to embed arbitrary graphics in a buffer.