I have had various
Jabsco and
Raritan toilets in various
boats, and never loved any of them.
The
Raritan manual toilet in my last
boat was far better to use than the
Jabsco manual ones I had in other
boats, but mostly just because it had a lever on the flush
pump, rather than the awkward push-pull handle on the Jabsco. In terms of
reliability -- about the same -- both pretty flimsy. Good thing (maybe only good thing) about the classical Jabsco manual toilet is that they are so
cheap, that you can easily carry a complete spare (or even two), and just pop it off and swap it in case of any trouble.
I currently have Jabsco electric conversion, the really noisy one, in my forward heads, and Raritan Sea Era in my after heads.
The Jabsco conversions have given various problems (used to have them in both heads), and are incredibly noisy, but they are heavy and robust, and you can empty the toilet separately from pumping water in. The unit in my forward heads packed it in last summer, and so this spring I replaced it. I chose to buy another Jabsco despite the various issues.
I have a Raritan Sea Era in my own, after heads. It is a
cheap Chinese toy compared to the much heavier and more serious Jabsco. And it disintegrated itself once due to the very flimsy plastic parts flexing -- apparently common problem with them. Fortunately I had an entire spare unit on board (I had bought two of them intending to convert both toilets).
I can't recommend the Sea Era at all; the Jabsco is a much better piece of
equipment, but it has its own issues and I can't really recommend it, either.
The Raritan Elegance may be better (it's certainly much more expensive); I don't know. But if it was designed by the same engineers who designed the Sea Era, I would be cautious.
As to electric vs. manual -- no comparison there. Manual toilet is much easier, like 10x easier to clog, and is much harder -- like 10x harder -- to flush all the way through so that you don't have calcifying waste standing in the lines. So hard as to be almost impossible to get crew to
pump a manual toilet enough. Electric toilets are the best thing since sliced bread on a boat, IMHO, ESPECIALLY if you have non-sailing guests on board you suspect might clog a manual toilet. Electric toilets macerate everything BEFORE it hits the lines, so MUCH less likely to clog anything.