diff --git a/Changes b/Changes
index 7ccb06f20..e70308fd3 100644
--- a/Changes
+++ b/Changes
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 Changes for SQL::Translator
 
  * Add support for parsing PostgreSQL dollar-quoted strings
+ * switched JSON backend from JSON.pm to JSON::MaybeXS
 
 0.11024 2018-01-09
 
diff --git a/Makefile.PL b/Makefile.PL
index aaa0f3b37..9cc115632 100644
--- a/Makefile.PL
+++ b/Makefile.PL
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ my $deps = {
     'XML::LibXML'              => '1.69',
   },
   test_requires => {
-    'JSON'                     => '2.0',
+    'JSON::MaybeXS'            => '1.003003',
     'YAML'                     => '0.66',
     'XML::Writer'              => '0.500',
     'Test::More'               => '0.88',
diff --git a/lib/SQL/Translator/Parser/JSON.pm b/lib/SQL/Translator/Parser/JSON.pm
index 22742ad22..b2e7ab62f 100644
--- a/lib/SQL/Translator/Parser/JSON.pm
+++ b/lib/SQL/Translator/Parser/JSON.pm
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ our $VERSION = '1.00';
 use SQL::Translator::Schema;
 use SQL::Translator::Utils qw(header_comment);
 use Data::Dumper;
-use JSON;
+use JSON::MaybeXS 'from_json';
 
 sub parse {
     my ($translator, $data) = @_;
diff --git a/lib/SQL/Translator/Producer/JSON.pm b/lib/SQL/Translator/Producer/JSON.pm
index b2f90040d..0ff632465 100644
--- a/lib/SQL/Translator/Producer/JSON.pm
+++ b/lib/SQL/Translator/Producer/JSON.pm
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ use strict;
 use warnings;
 our $VERSION = '1.00';
 
-use JSON;
+use JSON::MaybeXS 'to_json';
 
 sub produce {
     my $translator = shift;
@@ -184,7 +184,7 @@ sub view_index {
 
 =head1 SEE ALSO
 
-SQL::Translator, JSON, http://www.json.org/.
+SQL::Translator, JSON::MaybeXS, http://www.json.org/.
 
 =head1 AUTHORS
 
diff --git a/t/23json.t b/t/23json.t
index 7ed847ea3..431ce4dc1 100644
--- a/t/23json.t
+++ b/t/23json.t
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ BEGIN {
 }
 
 my $sqlt_version = $SQL::Translator::VERSION;
-use JSON;
+use JSON::MaybeXS 'from_json';
 my $json = from_json(<<JSON);
 {
    "schema" : {