What are the differences between ES6 class and ES5 function constructors?

Let’s first look at example of each:

// ES5 Function Constructor
function Person(name) {
  this.name = name;
}

// ES6 Class
class Person {
  constructor(name) {
    this.name = name;
  }
}

For simple constructors, they look pretty similar.

The main difference in the constructor comes when using inheritance. If we want to create a Student class that subclasses Person and add a studentId field, this is what we have to do in addition to the above.

// ES5 Function Constructor
function Student(name, studentId) {
  // Call constructor of superclass to initialize superclass-derived members.
  Person.call(this, name);

  // Initialize subclass's own members.
  this.studentId = studentId;
}

Student.prototype = Object.create(Person.prototype);
Student.prototype.constructor = Student;

// ES6 Class
class Student extends Person {
  constructor(name, studentId) {
    super(name);
    this.studentId = studentId;
  }
}

It’s much more verbose to use inheritance in ES5 and the ES6 version is easier to understand and remember.