The two functions return a new Object but with a difference. Object.assign will go through an enumerable and copy it's properties. Object.create will create a new empty object but link it's proto chain to the old object. One way to view this is with JSON.stringify(newCreatedObject) this would return an empty object, since all the properties are not part of the object's own properties, but inherited through prototype inheritance. In both case, the advantage is it allows to extended existing objects without modifying the original. This is particularly important when receiving arguments from a caller, in this case it's better to use these methods instead of modifying the caller's object since he might have planned to use it again later, expecting it to be in it's original state.