MWM is a lightweight window manager, having robust compliance and configuration of the features it has.

MWM supports: Common User Interface (i.e., Alt-Tab is switch windows, a standard), some International support, Common Desktop Environment, X Resource Database (/home/app-defaults/ and runtime), X Session Manager protocol, X Edited Resource Protocol (edit widget data), desktop icons, optional use of images to decorate, and had supported Virtual desktop (removed since 2.1) but now supports non-virtual desktop panning.

MWM is a window manager, not a full desktop environment, so it only manages windows; it is expected that configuration, programs, sound, are provided by other programs.

A plain text file is parsed to customize menus, user input mappings, management features, and user made functions of the same.

In late 2012, Motif and MWM were released under the LGPL-2.1-or-later license as free software.