Actually, valueOf uses parseInt internally. The difference is parseInt returns an int primitive while valueOf returns an Integer object. Consider from the Integer.class source:

Copypublic static int parseInt(String s) throws NumberFormatException {
    return parseInt(s, 10);
}

public static Integer valueOf(String s, int radix) throws NumberFormatException {
    return Integer.valueOf(parseInt(s, radix));
}

public static Integer valueOf(String s) throws NumberFormatException {
    return Integer.valueOf(parseInt(s, 10));
}

As for parsing with a comma, I'm not familiar with one. I would sanitize them.

Copyint million = Integer.parseInt("1,000,000".replace(",", ""));

Well, the API for Integer.valueOf(String) does indeed say that the String is interpreted exactly as if it were given to Integer.parseInt(String). However, valueOf(String) returns a new Integer() object whereas parseInt(String) returns a primitive int.

If you want to enjoy the potential caching benefits of Integer.valueOf(int), you could also use this eyesore:

Integer k = Integer.valueOf(Integer.parseInt("123"))

Now, if what you want is the object and not the primitive, then using valueOf(String) may be more attractive than making a new object out of parseInt(String) because the former is consistently present across Integer, Long, Double, etc.