I do that except with terminal emulator sessions. One window with few tabs per virtual desktop, as I rarely need to have more than 2-3 projects open at the time

I do that except with terminal emulator sessions. One window with few tabs per virtual desktop, as I rarely need to have more than 2-3 projects open at the time it works fine. But... isn't tmux sessions exactly what you'd need for that? One session per project, then just connect to servers from within tmux windows There is even switch-tree (default C-b w) that will show each session with every sub-window in it, and even preview window below that showing each terminal (refreshable via space)