A fuel cell assembly comprising a plurality of individual fuel cells, especially a solid-oxide fuel cell assembly. The cells are organized into a plurality of stacks, preferably two stacks, disposed side-by-side rather than end-to-end as in a prior art monolithic single stack. This arrangement makes the assembly compact physically, which can be highly desirable in some fuel cell applications. The stacks are connected conventionally in series electrically but are supplied with air and fuel in parallel to shorten the distribution manifolds and improve uniformity of distribution and exhaust among all the cells.