Visual Studio Code vs Sublime Text: Keyboard Shortcuts Compared
This is one of the closer comparisons on this site, and not by accident — VS Code's multi-cursor and Goto Anything-style navigation features were explicitly inspired by Sublime Text, which pioneered much of this interaction model years earlier. The result is two editors whose core editing shortcuts feel almost identical, with the real differences concentrated in scope (VS Code's broader IDE-like feature set versus Sublime's narrower, faster text-editing focus) rather than in fundamentally different keyboard philosophies.
| Action | Visual Studio Code | Sublime Text | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Select next occurrence | Ctrl+D | Ctrl+D | Identical behavior — VS Code explicitly modeled this on Sublime's implementation. |
| Add cursor below | Ctrl+Alt+Down | Ctrl+Alt+Down | Identical. |
| Fuzzy file open | Ctrl+P | Ctrl+P | Same shortcut, slightly different internal naming (Quick Open vs Goto Anything). |
| Command palette | Ctrl+Shift+P | Ctrl+Shift+P | VS Code's Command Palette name and shortcut were directly adopted from Sublime's identical feature. |
| Toggle integrated terminal | Ctrl+` | — | No native equivalent in Sublime; requires a plugin for terminal integration. |
| Start debugging | F5 | — | Sublime has no built-in debugger; this requires third-party tooling entirely outside the editor. |
| Select all occurrences | Ctrl+Shift+L | Ctrl+Shift+L (Alt+F3 in some configs) | Same intent, Sublime's exact default has varied slightly across versions and platforms. |
Multi-cursor editing is nearly a direct port
Ctrl+D for select-next-occurrence behaves identically in both editors, selecting the word under the cursor and adding the next match on each subsequent press. Vertical cursor addition (Ctrl+Alt+Down/Up in both) also matches exactly. This isn't coincidental — VS Code's team built its multi-cursor model with explicit awareness of Sublime's pioneering implementation, and the shared muscle memory between the two editors is one of the most genuinely useful pieces of cross-tool consistency in this entire shortcut-comparison series.
File and symbol search diverge slightly in naming, not behavior
Both call their fuzzy file finder Ctrl+P (Goto Anything in Sublime, Quick Open in VS Code), and both support prefix characters to narrow the search mode — Sublime's @ for symbols and # for content search within Goto Anything's same box, versus VS Code splitting some of these into Ctrl+Shift+O for symbols specifically. The underlying philosophy (one fuzzy search box, prefix-modified) is shared, even though the exact prefix conventions and default key for symbol search differ slightly.
Where VS Code pulls ahead: integrated tooling
VS Code's shortcuts extend well beyond text editing into integrated terminal management, a built-in debugger with F9/F5/F10/F11 stepping, and Git integration — none of which Sublime Text offers natively, since Sublime has always positioned itself as a fast, lightweight text editor rather than a full IDE. Sublime users who want equivalent functionality typically rely on plugins (like Package Control-installed Git or build-system integrations), which don't carry the same polished, built-in keyboard shortcut consistency that VS Code's first-party features do.
Verdict
If your work is primarily writing and editing code with heavy multi-cursor use, the two editors will feel nearly interchangeable at the keyboard level, and the choice comes down to whether you want VS Code's broader built-in IDE features (debugging, terminal, Git, extensions ecosystem) or Sublime's lighter weight and famously fast startup and file-handling performance, especially with very large files where Sublime still has a real edge. Many developers who started on Sublime and moved to VS Code report the multi-cursor shortcuts were the easiest part of the transition specifically because so little needed to be relearned.
FAQ
Why do VS Code and Sublime Text share so many identical shortcuts?
VS Code's editing and navigation model was explicitly influenced by Sublime Text, which had already established strong conventions (Goto Anything, multi-cursor via Ctrl+D, the Command Palette concept) years before VS Code existed. Rather than inventing entirely new conventions, VS Code's designers adopted many of Sublime's proven patterns directly, including the exact same default keybindings in several cases.
Is Sublime Text still actively developed?
Yes, though at a slower release cadence than VS Code, which has Microsoft's backing and a much larger contributor base including its extension ecosystem. Sublime remains a paid, closed-source product (with an unlimited evaluation period) focused narrowly on being a fast, polished text editor rather than expanding into full IDE territory.
See full references: Visual Studio Code shortcuts · Sublime Text shortcuts