It contains a majority of the Barnstable Town offices and two important shopping districts: the historic downtown Main Street and the Route 132 Commercial District, including Cape Cod Mall and Independence Park, headquarters of Cape Cod Potato Chips.

Hyannis is a major tourist destination and the primary ferry boat and general aviation link for passengers and freight to Nantucket Island.

[10]: 2 In April 2015, the town's Mary Dunn wellfield near a fire training academy was found to be contaminated with perfluorooctane sulfonate, and well use was suspended until costly emergency filtration with two carbon treatment units could be started.

[12] In May 2016, the City of Barnstable issued a drinking water health advisory, for PFOS and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) of 0.18 parts per billion in the Mary Dunn #3 well, which was taken offline.

A decline in younger, family formation households was attributed to the lack of suitable employment opportunities and "affordable" housing.

The Steamship Authority runs a year-round two and a half hour auto ferry service to Nantucket.

The island can also be reached by a passenger-only, one-hour catamaran trip run by the Steamship Authority (seasonal) and Hy-Line Cruises (year-round).

The Hyannis Transportation Center (HTC) is the main bus and rail terminal on Cape Cod.

The HTC services is a terminal station for Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority, the operator of the Cape-wide public bus network on Cape Cod, intercity buses operated by the Plymouth & Brockton and Peter Pan bus lines, and the seasonal CapeFlyer passenger rail service which operates between Boston and Hyannis Friday-Sunday in-season.

The Cape Cod Central Railroad operates seasonal tourist excursions from Hyannis to Sandwich and Sagamore, with some scheduled weekend stops at West Barnstable.

The team plays at McKeon Park, and has featured dozens of players who went on to careers in Major League Baseball, such as Robin Ventura, Jackie Bradley Jr., and Jason Varitek.