diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 9f7343a77..5935b6cd0 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -125,6 +125,11 @@ name = "fnv"
 version = "1.0.6"
 source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
 
+[[package]]
+name = "fs_extra"
+version = "1.1.0"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+
 [[package]]
 name = "fuchsia-cprng"
 version = "0.1.1"
@@ -257,6 +262,25 @@ name = "itoa"
 version = "0.4.3"
 source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
 
+[[package]]
+name = "jemalloc-sys"
+version = "0.3.0"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+dependencies = [
+ "cc 1.0.35 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
+ "fs_extra 1.1.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
+ "libc 0.2.51 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
+]
+
+[[package]]
+name = "jemallocator"
+version = "0.3.0"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+dependencies = [
+ "jemalloc-sys 0.3.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
+ "libc 0.2.51 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
+]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "lazy_static"
 version = "1.3.0"
@@ -508,6 +532,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "clap 2.33.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
  "grep 0.2.4",
  "ignore 0.4.7",
+ "jemallocator 0.3.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
  "lazy_static 1.3.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
  "log 0.4.6 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
  "num_cpus 1.10.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)",
@@ -707,9 +732,12 @@ dependencies = [
 "checksum encoding_rs 0.8.17 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "4155785c79f2f6701f185eb2e6b4caf0555ec03477cb4c70db67b465311620ed"
 "checksum encoding_rs_io 0.1.6 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "9619ee7a2bf4e777e020b95c1439abaf008f8ea8041b78a0552c4f1bcf4df32c"
 "checksum fnv 1.0.6 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "2fad85553e09a6f881f739c29f0b00b0f01357c743266d478b68951ce23285f3"
+"checksum fs_extra 1.1.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "5f2a4a2034423744d2cc7ca2068453168dcdb82c438419e639a26bd87839c674"
 "checksum fuchsia-cprng 0.1.1 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "a06f77d526c1a601b7c4cdd98f54b5eaabffc14d5f2f0296febdc7f357c6d3ba"
 "checksum glob 0.3.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "9b919933a397b79c37e33b77bb2aa3dc8eb6e165ad809e58ff75bc7db2e34574"
 "checksum itoa 0.4.3 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "1306f3464951f30e30d12373d31c79fbd52d236e5e896fd92f96ec7babbbe60b"
+"checksum jemalloc-sys 0.3.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "7bef0d4ce37578dfd80b466e3d8324bd9de788e249f1accebb0c472ea4b52bdc"
+"checksum jemallocator 0.3.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "c2b69163a3cf2d0fffcd4e1b57921bc6d8fb97ec27f2aeef00562abdaf4ffe2a"
 "checksum lazy_static 1.3.0 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "bc5729f27f159ddd61f4df6228e827e86643d4d3e7c32183cb30a1c08f604a14"
 "checksum libc 0.2.51 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "bedcc7a809076656486ffe045abeeac163da1b558e963a31e29fbfbeba916917"
 "checksum log 0.4.6 (registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index)" = "c84ec4b527950aa83a329754b01dbe3f58361d1c5efacd1f6d68c494d08a17c6"
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index e93c41a81..d8c68d75e 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -61,6 +61,9 @@ version = "2.32.0"
 default-features = false
 features = ["suggestions"]
 
+[target.'cfg(target_env = "musl")'.dependencies.jemallocator]
+version = "0.3.0"
+
 [build-dependencies]
 lazy_static = "1.1.0"
 
diff --git a/src/main.rs b/src/main.rs
index f607422d8..d5c67a0bd 100644
--- a/src/main.rs
+++ b/src/main.rs
@@ -19,6 +19,26 @@ mod path_printer;
 mod search;
 mod subject;
 
+// Since Rust no longer uses jemalloc by default, ripgrep will, by default,
+// use the system allocator. On Linux, this would normally be glibc's
+// allocator, which is pretty good. In particular, ripgrep does not have a
+// particularly allocation heavy workload, so there really isn't much
+// difference (for ripgrep's purposes) between glibc's allocator and jemalloc.
+//
+// However, when ripgrep is built with musl, this means ripgrep will use musl's
+// allocator, which appears to be substantially worse. (musl's goal is not to
+// have the fastest version of everything. Its goal is to be small and amenable
+// to static compilation.) Even though ripgrep isn't particularly allocation
+// heavy, musl's allocator appears to slow down ripgrep quite a bit. Therefore,
+// when building with musl, we use jemalloc.
+//
+// We don't unconditionally use jemalloc because it can be nice to use the
+// system's default allocator by default. Moreover, jemalloc seems to increase
+// compilation times by a bit.
+#[cfg(target_env = "musl")]
+#[global_allocator]
+static ALLOC: jemallocator::Jemalloc = jemallocator::Jemalloc;
+
 type Result<T> = ::std::result::Result<T, Box<::std::error::Error>>;
 
 fn main() {