Works out the box with tmux 1.8 and later + iTerm2 these days. Simply run tmux -CC [attach] and the tmux session pops up as tabs in iTerm2.
I don't know about any similar alternatives for linux :(
1) You have to have a separate terminal window for the 'control' process.
2) Now creating new tabs / windows automatically creates them in said tmux session (unless you manually use the "Profiles" drop-down menu). It would be nice to use Tmux as a way to create a window full of tabs in a scripted way (a la Tmuxinator), but not be forced to use a single Tmux session for everything.
1) You have to have a separate terminal window for the 'control' process.
2) Now creating new tabs / windows automatically creates them in said tmux session (unless you manually use the "Profiles" drop-down menu). It would be nice to use Tmux as a way to create a window full of tabs in a scripted way (a la Tmuxinator), but not be forced to use a single Tmux session for everything.