No comparisons yet, but I was lucky enough to test one of the Compact Filters. 
There is no smell while the compact filter is running, even during the stinkiest of extruded mirrored chemical laden acrylic, which has always made me a little bit sick to smell. And it was tested in a small 8’ x 10’ office with me sitting right next to it for hours of heavy cutting and engraving.
(I do imagine that the Glowforge filter is going to be the same level of odor control, otherwise there wouldn’t have been so many delays…they are extremely conscientious about their products.)
To me though, the main advantage to the Compact Filter is going to be the ease of changing out the filter. It’s not always going to be convenient for me to have someone help me lift the Glowforge off of the machine to replace a filter.
It’s not going to look as nice, but it’s going to be a lot more workable for my uses.
I should probably also mention, for those of you who have the ability to vent outside some of the time, that this unit is going to be a lot easier to set up with a port and a quick connect that lets you shift from filtering to venting outside. I set it up with the Rockler Dust Right quick connect system and hose, and it literally takes ten seconds to switch from one port to the other. So I can use the filter for the stinky stuff like acrylic and leather, and just switch to venting outside for the draftboard so it doesn’t load the filter up as fast.
Sit tight and I’ll show a couple of pictures…
Connected to the window port:
And connected to the filter under the desk:
You literally just pull on the handle and put it over the flange.
*(If you do buy that particular handle, you have to seal off a small suction release port inside it with a strip of 2" wide aluminum tape to make it odor free…there is a slider to let you control the amount of vacuum through the handle. But it’s simple to close with one strip of tape.)