URI.create() vs new URI()

Reading the docs, it differs in the usage.

Creates a URI by parsing the given string.This convenience factory method works as if by invoking the {@link URI(String)} constructor; any {@link URISyntaxException} thrown by the constructor is caught and wrapped in a new {@link IllegalArgumentException} object, which is then thrown.

This method is provided for use in situations where it is known that the given string is a legal URI, for example for URI constants declared within in a program, and so it would be considered a programming error for the string not to parse as such. The constructors, which throw {@link URISyntaxException} directly, should be used situations where a URI is being constructed from user input or from some other source that may be prone to errors.

@param str The string to be parsed into a URI

 * @return The new URI
 *
 * @throws  NullPointerException
 *          If {@code str} is {@code null}
 *
 * @throws  IllegalArgumentException
 *          If the given string violates RFC 2396
 */

public static URI create(String str) {
    try {
        return new URI(str);
    } catch (URISyntaxException x) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(x.getMessage(), x);
    }
}

There is no difference because URI.create delegates the call to the constructor. The only real difference is that URI.create(String) wraps the URISyntaxException which the constructor throws (checked exception) into an IllegalArgumentException (unchecked exception). So if you don't want to deal with the checked exception it's better to just call URI.create(String).

Here is the piece of code from JDK:

public static URI create(String str) {
    try {
        return new URI(str);
    } catch (URISyntaxException x) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(x.getMessage(), x);
    }
}