What is npm create command?

Interesting question, I wasn’t aware of this either.

To answer this question, I ran

$ npm create --help

which printed

npm init [–force|-f|–yes|-y|–scope] npm init <@scope> (same as npx <@scope>/create) npm init [<@scope>/] (same as npx [<@scope>/]create-<name>)

aliases: create, innit

So yes, it is a synonym, or more specifically an alias, for npm init.

This was done using npm 6.10.1

It doesn’t matter which command one uses but init is the canonical form while create is an alias. This is evidenced by the fact that npm create --help actually invokes npm init --help which is why we see create listed as an alias in this above output.