Figurative language uses figures of speech to provide more complex and intensified meaning to the subjects it describes. Connotative language uses cultural or emotional references that are shared and understood by a group of people sharing the same cultural markers in order describe the subject of such language and associate a positive or negative perception of it.
They are similar in that they both avoid using direct explicit, literal language to describe the subjects they are referring to and prefer to use oblique references to it.
