diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 2af185b..3a25e7b 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
-.idea
 .DS_Store
+.idea
 build
-vendor
 composer.lock
 composer.phar
+coverage
+vendor
diff --git a/composer.json b/composer.json
index c5c0696..dd8cd99 100644
--- a/composer.json
+++ b/composer.json
@@ -8,8 +8,10 @@
   "author": "Mashape <opensource@mashape.com> (https://www.mashape.com)",
   "require": {
     "php": ">=5.4.0",
-    "ext-curl": "*",
-    "ext-json": "*"
+    "ext-curl": "*"
+  },
+  "suggest": {
+    "ext-json": "Allows using JSON Bodies for sending and parsing requests"
   },
   "require-dev": {
     "phpunit/phpunit": "~4.4",
diff --git a/src/Unirest/Response.php b/src/Unirest/Response.php
index 9493de1..99eaed0 100644
--- a/src/Unirest/Response.php
+++ b/src/Unirest/Response.php
@@ -25,10 +25,12 @@ class Response
         // make sure raw_body is the first argument
         array_unshift($json_args, $raw_body);
 
-        $json = call_user_func_array('json_decode', $json_args);
+        if (function_exists('json_decode')) {
+            $json = call_user_func_array('json_decode', $json_args);
 
-        if (json_last_error() === JSON_ERROR_NONE) {
-            $this->body = $json;
+            if (json_last_error() === JSON_ERROR_NONE) {
+                $this->body = $json;
+            }
         }
     }