The EXPLORER high resolution diffraction system incorporates the high efficiency of the direct drive torque motors controlled by optical encoders, allowing to reach an angular accuracy of 0.00001°. Thanks to the modularity, all the hardware components can be changed allowing seven five independent degrees of freedom and investigations on a whole range of powders, bulk materials and thin layers. EXPLORER offers solutions for a wide range of analytical requirements, from routine crystalline phase identification and quantification, crystallite size/lattice strain and crystallinity calculations, retained austenite quantification, polymorph screening, crystal structures analysis, to residual-stress analysis, thin films, depth profiling, non-ambient analyses, phase transition, textures and preferred orientation, nanoparticles. The optics permit switches between Bragg-Brentano, focusing and parallel beam geometry using Johansson or parabolic mirror monochromators. The coupling between a parabolic mirror monochromator and a channel-cut crystal mounted on the incident beam allows to realise a monochromatic parallel beam with high intensity and low divergence, suitable for high resolution measurements.