It looks like I should simply be able to click ‘update’ but I’m having a really hard time finding any documentation that says whether this is true.
It’s a production server, so I have to schedule a maintenance if it needs a restart. I don’t want to click ‘update’ to find the next message says ‘good, now please restart openfire’.
Does updating plugins require a restart of openfire or no?
-d
Usually not. At least it will not ask you to restart. Even if something went wrong with the update and only a restart can fix this.
Thanks for the info. For anyone else curious down the road I was also able to ‘install update’ of the monitoring plugin without having to restart openfire. Just wish I could ever have found a doc to say that. 
I very much appreciate your answer, however for production servers ‘someone says in a forum’ isn’t the best way to proceed. Still, thank you very much.
I’d say “someone with 8 years experience” The one creating the initial documentation probably thought it is obvious that restart is not needed if it is not mentioned in the Plugins section. Anyway, OF-675.