They do not do the same thing.id is used to target a specific element, classname can be used to target multiple elements.
Example:
<div id="mycolor1" class="mycolor2"> hello world </div>
<div class="mycolor2"> hello world2 </div>
<div class="mycolor2"> hello world3 </div>
Now, you can refer all the divs with classname mycolor2 at once using
.mycolor2{ color: red } //for example - in css
This would set all nodes with class mycolor2 to red.
However, if you want to set specifically mycolor1 to blue , you can target it specifically like this:
#mycolor1{ color: blue; }