Many believed fiber lasers could only work with thin materials. Because CO2 has a longer wavelength, it created enough material kerf to permit material removal. Fiber lasers can't produce the same level of kerf and results with thicker materials. This has been corrected by collimating tech, which can produce a wide fiber laser-generated beam that allows for materials separation. It also makes it possible to allow for material removal in thicker materials. You can also switch the beam width so that the machine can process thin materials with the narrower beam. This allows you to process more materials in a shorter time.
Another consideration is the fiber laser’s briefcase-sized modules—they allow for redundancy. If one module has a problem, the resonator doesn’t shut down completely. The fiber laser is redundant in a way that the other modules can produce more power temporarily to support the down module until repairs can be completed—which, by the way, can be done in the field. Other times the fiber resonator can continue producing reduced power until repairs can be made. Unfortunately, if a CO2 resonator has an issue, the entire resonator is down, not just in a reduced-power mode.