Not at all, if only to tell about virtues iTerm2 and tmux to wider audience!

Short version: iTerm with tmux control mode (tmux -CC flag) is still iTerm, only now with tmux benefits like persistent shell sessions. iTerm translates regular commands like new window and split pane into tmux commands and acts otherwise like regular iTerm. Mac might crash or SSH get disconnected and tmux stays running to save you from losing anything (well, if it's running on a server..).

In addition you tmux gives you shell sharing and allows using different devices alltogether. I sometimes use iPad or iPhone with Blink.app to connect to my always running sessions. You can connect to existing tmux session attaching with CC mode and iTerm will open windows and panes to accommodate.

One caveat if you require Mosh for network issues: it and tmux control mode aren't compatible. Also, I'd like to open tmux windows as tabs instead of separate iTerm windows, but that's a minor thing.

This page on iTerm's wiki explains things in detail: https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/wikis/TmuxIntegration

I use tmux with iTerm regularly, and it's my killer feature in iTerm.

I don't think there's much benefit to using tmux integration for a local shell, other than possibly long-lasting sessions that will survive iTerm itself crashing (and maybe you logging out? I'm not sure), which isn't enough of a problem for me to have to work around.

The awesome benefit for me is when using a remote tmux. Tmux integration works over SSH, so thanks to this I can have native-looking tabs and windows that are actually terminals on a remote machine. And if I get disconnected (frequent, with a laptop, as I'm moving around), I can reconnect and get all the remote windows just fine.

Gone are all the usual tmux C-b prefixes to managing windows, non-integrated scrolling, etc. Everything behaves like a normal iTerm window. I can even split/move panes like normal iTerm panes (though that crashed iTerm until about a year ago).

I have the following alias defined:

    ssh -t elf.example.com /opt/local/bin/tmux -u -CC attach

The -t is the SSH option to force pseudo-terminal allocation, which some versions of ssh fail to do when passing a command (in this case tmux) rather than starting a shell.

I'm specifying the /opt/local/bin version of tmux, because that's an updated one I've installed from MacPorts. Unfortunately Apple continues to bundle old versions of tmux in macOS, and last I checked the one that was bundled didn't actually support the Control Channel required by iTerm integration.

-u is a tmux option to force it in Unicode mode, required by iTerm's Tmux integration

-CC tells tmux to start a control channel and disable echo (required by iTerm's tmux integration)

`attach` attaches to the default session that I created prior.

I’d say it’s the opposite as an die hard tmux-user. I don’t really use the integration since I’m more comfortable with my terminal in full screen and my own tmux config. The integration services seems more appropriate for someone who doesn’t already have their tmux-bindings and workflow stamped into muscle memory but rather just want the benefits of detaching their terminal sessions from their terminal application while retaining iterm native tabs, windows and panes.

I’ve tried out the integration mode a few times but it just doesn’t fit my workflow (often switching sessions, highly customized tmux configuration, etc).