The BEST Composting Toilet is the OGO Origin, and here’s why.

We live full-time in our self-converted sprinter van, so having a high-quality toilet is essential to enjoying life. We’ve done a ton of research to determine what is important in a composting toilet and which brand makes the best head. Based on cost, build quality, features, and form factor, we determined the OGO Origin to be the best composting toilet. In this article, we’ll break down each feature and compare the OGO to other name brands and DIY options. Let us break it down.

Although we worked with OGO, all these opinions are our own. The statements below are completely our own, and we were not paid by OGO to say this.

What Matters in a Composting Toilet

We have to begin by setting out the criteria by which to judge a composting toilet. In our personal opinion, we want our toilet to satisfy the following criteria:

1. No smell. Having a smelly head is big deal-breaker.
2. Safety guards for overflowing materials. No one want’s to deal with a 💩-plosion.
3. Size. It has to have a relatively small form factor, but maximize liquid and solid storage.
4. Cost. It can’t be an expensive outlier in the composting toilet market.
5. Easy Servicing. Composting toilets will typically have more servicing required than traditional toilets along the lines of emptying the reservoirs. Therefore, it needs to be easy.
6. Build Quality. Does it stand up to heavy use over time?

Handling any Toilet Smells

The OGO Origin has solved the smell issue of composting heads for both the urine and the composting area of the head. Let me explain.

Ensuring the solids do not Smell

The OGO Origin has a low-power fan connected to a ribbed nylon tube, which is then vented out of the bathroom (or, in our case, our van). By blowing air out of the solids container, OGO ensures the solids container does not smell. The noise is almost silent; it’s only noticeable if your ears are close and you’re trying to listen to it. The fan runs as long as the button is pushed and runs for about a minute.

Ensuring the liquids do not smell.

Most people don’t worry too much about their liquids smelling, which is a non-issue in the OGO Origin for two reasons. The first is practicality. We dump our liquid container every other day, so there isn’t enough time for the pee to build up and smell. Secondly, the jug fits extremely securely into the toilet with a rubber gasket and lid. This makes it so the smell has nowhere to escape.

Safety Guards and Sensors

With any off-grid toilet, what you want to never happen is an overflow. When we used to live on a boat, and dealt with two marine heads, we had an overflow scenario once. It was like our boat was transported to a garbage dump. The OGO Origin prevents that via sensors. Right where you press the agitator to mix your solids, there is a red LED that illuminates when your liquids container is 75% full. It gives you a few more uses before it’s full, which is a game changer.

For the solids, as you have a portal opening up anytime, you go number two, it’s very easy to make sure you don’t overflow. Plus, it takes much longer for your solids to overflow, so you have more chances to see it filling up.

This is one of the big reasons why I don’t feel like a DIY version of a composting head is as good a choice as the OGO Origin. You’ll spend so much time dealing with having no sensor OR building your own that it would make more sense to just purchase one!

Size Matters (in Composting Toilets)

Size is extremely important when considering a composting toilet:

1. It needs to fit in your bathroom. This is less restricting for land off-grid solutions, but for a van like ours, it was very important.
2. It needs to be comfortable. No one wants to sit on an uncomfortable toilet.
3. The sizes of the solids and liquids containers have a huge impact on your daily life.

The OGO Origin is has a small footprint, making it perfect for points a and b. Here’s a breakdown:

Small enough to go anywhere but big enough to be comfortable. Next, let’s break down the capacities of each toilet:

As you can see, OGO compromises a little on the solids container for more liquid and a smaller footprint! You may wonder why not go with the Trellino or Nomad by OGO, which are great composting toilets, but they don’t have any agitators, sensors, and other necessary quality-of-life features for full-time vanlife. They may work well as weekend adventure van toilets, but in our opinion, they are not great as a long-term toilet solution. The Trellino toilet and Nomad by OGO are very simple toilets, which may work for some people. For us, the electric agitator brings us a quality of life that’s hard to describe. Let’s just say the electric agitator blocks out the noise when someone is using the toilet. The dull hum and sound that comes from the agitator when on is worth its weight in gold as a couple living in a van full-time.

Cost – The composting toilet can’t break the bank.

When you can buy a traditional toilet from the bi-box stores for about $100, seeing the prices of many composting toilets may make your jaw drop. Considering composting toilets don’t require any infrastructure, and most people don’t like getting down and dirty, we feel they are worth the price. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most popular brands and how they stack up in 2025:

As you can see, the OGO Origin is competitively priced (especially if you use our discount code SCHO&JO50 to save $50), but is on the expensive side. We believe in the saying, “Buy once, cry once,” and for a toilet, you’ll want to get it right the first time. Since the cost is justified in the most features (it’s the only toilet with an automatic agitator), we are content with our decision on the OGO toilet.

Easy Servicing

Compost toilets are rarely set and forget, like more household toilets – where, with one flush all your worries are away. All of the composting toilets we’ve listed used coco coir as the substrate in the solid bin. As you will empty out your liquids container much more often than your solids, that is the most important factor to consider. The Natures Head toilet requires you to first take the solids out to remove the liquids, and that is a no-bueno. The OGO Origin, like some others in our list, makes emptying the liquid and solids container easy. The liquid container even has a cap, so when you need to empty it, you don’t have to worry about any spillage.

If your use case doesn’t require you to store your pee in a jug, OGO also sells a urine-diverting kit. This kit will basically pipe your urine to a black water tank, giving your toilet much longer servicing.

Build Quality – Is it built to last?

The OGO Origin is made in the USA, we’ve found that the build quality has been exceptional. It has held up well so far with no signs of wear. One of the reasons why we like the OGO Origin so much, is that they sell many of the parts on their website. Companies that sell parts so you can fix your expensive toilet earn huge kudos in our book.

Final thoughts and why we consider the OGO Origin as the Best Composting Toilet

There are many different high quality composting toilets on the market. You can even DIY a solution for pennies, that will work just fine. We have high standards in our home, Summit. The toilet that best suits our needs, across all categories is the OGO Origin. Let us know in the comments below, do you have the OGO? Do you agree with our assessment?