Unlike many other minimap mods, Xaero's minimap keeps the aesthetic of vanilla Minecraft, which helps it be a more seamless addition to the game. It is also the first rotating square minimap for Minecraft. Among a wide variety of customization settings, there is an option for a circle-shaped minimap and a separate setting for locking the minimap's rotation (using a direction arrow instead). The minimap can display the surrounding entities, including players, mobs and items, as dots with a custom color or as icons (usually heads). In addition to the default compass directions, you can place your own waypoints that are visible both on the minimap and in the game world. Waypoints help you find previously visited locations or reach specific coordinates, with optional teleportation. The minimap can display the surrounding blocks above ground and below ground (cave mode). These are just some of the features of the mod while there are many more. Please read the "Minimap features" section below for a more complete list. For the purposes of following multiplayer server rules, there are 2 mod editions, full and fair-play, the latter being designed for fair PVP. This mod is mostly client-sided. Installing it on the server side is optional for some additional features like world identification.
For a more complete list of features and some answers to frequently asked questions, please refer to the mod's CurseForge or Modrinth page.
If you're having trouble installing any of the mods, then some of the guides might help.