diff --git a/kube/Cargo.toml b/kube/Cargo.toml
index 179586a96..5bbc67494 100644
--- a/kube/Cargo.toml
+++ b/kube/Cargo.toml
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ derive = ["kube-derive"]
 jsonpatch = ["json-patch"]
 ws = ["tokio-tungstenite"]
 oauth = ["tame-oauth"]
+gzip = ["async-compression"]
 
 [package.metadata.docs.rs]
 features = ["derive", "ws"]
@@ -62,7 +63,7 @@ hyper-tls = { version = "0.5.0", optional = true }
 hyper-rustls = { version = "0.22.1", optional = true }
 tokio-tungstenite = { version = "0.13.0", optional = true }
 tower = { version = "0.4.4", features = ["buffer", "util"] }
-async-compression = { version = "0.3.7", features = ["gzip", "tokio"] }
+async-compression = { version = "0.3.7", features = ["gzip", "tokio"], optional = true }
 hyper-timeout = "0.4.1"
 tame-oauth = { version = "0.4.7", features = ["gcp"], optional = true }
 pin-project = "1.0.4"
diff --git a/kube/src/service/mod.rs b/kube/src/service/mod.rs
index 3e3875b6c..94543c338 100644
--- a/kube/src/service/mod.rs
+++ b/kube/src/service/mod.rs
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 //! `Service` abstracts the connection to Kubernetes API server.
 
 mod auth;
-mod compression;
+#[cfg(feature = "gzip")] mod compression;
 mod headers;
 mod log;
 mod tls;
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ mod url;
 
 use self::{log::LogRequest, url::set_cluster_url};
 use auth::AuthLayer;
-use compression::{accept_compressed, maybe_decompress};
+#[cfg(feature = "gzip")] use compression::{accept_compressed, maybe_decompress};
 use headers::set_default_headers;
 use tls::HttpsConnector;
 
@@ -82,12 +82,18 @@ impl TryFrom<Config> for Service {
             );
         }
 
+        #[cfg(feature = "gzip")]
         let common = ServiceBuilder::new()
             .map_request(move |r| set_cluster_url(r, &cluster_url))
             .map_request(move |r| set_default_headers(r, default_headers.clone()))
             .map_request(accept_compressed)
             .map_response(maybe_decompress)
             .into_inner();
+        #[cfg(not(feature = "gzip"))]
+        let common = ServiceBuilder::new()
+            .map_request(move |r| set_cluster_url(r, &cluster_url))
+            .map_request(move |r| set_default_headers(r, default_headers.clone()))
+            .into_inner();
 
         let https: HttpsConnector<_> = config.try_into()?;
         let mut connector = TimeoutConnector::new(https);