diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index bf10a1165..acbf3a3b1 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ pathlib
 preshed == 0.41
 thinc == 3.3
 murmurhash == 0.24
-unidecode
+text-unidecode
 numpy
 wget
 plac
diff --git a/spacy/orth.pyx b/spacy/orth.pyx
index df4e2dc32..27123bb4e 100644
--- a/spacy/orth.pyx
+++ b/spacy/orth.pyx
@@ -1,7 +1,16 @@
 # -*- coding: utf8 -*-
 from __future__ import unicode_literals
 import unicodedata
-from unidecode import unidecode
+
+# If your license is not GPL compatible, use text_unidecode. But if your code
+# is, you should use the unidecode library, because its performance is better.
+# spaCy does not list unidecode as a dependency, in case your license is not
+# GPL compatible.
+try:
+    from unidecode import unidecode
+except ImportError:
+    from text_unidecode import unidecode
+
 import re
 
 import math