It is intended as a serif font that is suitable for body text, that is very readable printed small or displayed on a low-resolution screen and has even spacing and proportions.

[3] A profile of Bosma for the Monotype website commented: "One of the defining features of the typeface is its contrast between heavy vertical serifs and hairlines—which keep the font sturdy, and ensures the design is preserved at small sizes—and its relatively thin horizontals, which ensure the typeface remains crisp when used at larger sizes."

The typeface is licensed by Ascender Corporation for use by end users and consumer electronics device manufacturers.

The typeface is also licensed by Monotype Imaging to printer manufacturers as part of the Vista 8 Font Set package.

In 2013, as part of Chrome, Google released a freely-licensed font called Caladea, which is metric-compatible to Cambria (i.e. can replace it in a document without changing the layout).

Despite being metric-compatible, Caladea covers much smaller language range, e.g. it doesn't support Cyrillic, Greek and advanced typographic features like ligatures, old style numerals or fractions.

The free typesetting systems XeTeX and LuaTeX can make direct use of Cambria Math as an alternative to traditional TeX mathematical fonts.