While writing the comparison pages for ManageWP, MainWP, WP Umbrella, and InfiniteWP on our LP, I tried to line up the four products under a single "connection method" column — and got stuck. The same ManageWP gets called a "Hosted SaaS tool" in one source, a "Worker plugin tool" in another, and a "self-hosted" tool in yet another.
On closer look, these labels are mixing two distinct axes into one column. Once you separate them, the four products fit cleanly into a two-axis, six-cell grid. This post lays out that grid and walks through what each cell means for day-to-day operations.
Axis 1 — What gets installed on the client site
The first axis asks what the maintenance tool installs on the WordPress sites it manages. There are two answers.
A. Worker / Child plugin: Each managed site gets a dedicated plugin from the maintenance tool. ManageWP Worker, MainWP Child, WP Umbrella, InfiniteWP Client — the names differ, but they all play the same role: a "gateway plugin" that exposes a REST/HTTP endpoint the dashboard talks to.