A high power fiber laser system consisting of multiple fiber amplifier or laser systems amplifying the input signal in parallel is configured with a high power splitter such as to share some of the gain stages. The high power splitting component consists of high power fiber couplers and splitter(s). The splitter is a holographic optical element, a dielectric coated plate, a diffraction grating, or a volume Bragg grating. The resultant fiber laser configuration reduces the total number of amplifying stages including optical isolators and active fiber assemblies for the system and thus reduces the total volume and weight.