diff --git a/Gemfile b/Gemfile
index e98dd4e9ea8..435bccaf04b 100644
--- a/Gemfile
+++ b/Gemfile
@@ -294,6 +294,11 @@ group :development, :test do
   gem 'teaspoon', '~> 1.1.0'
   gem 'teaspoon-jasmine', '~> 2.2.0'
 
+  gem 'spring',                   '~> 1.7.0'
+  gem 'spring-commands-rspec',    '~> 1.0.4'
+  gem 'spring-commands-spinach',  '~> 1.1.0'
+  gem 'spring-commands-teaspoon', '~> 0.0.2'
+
   gem 'rubocop', '~> 0.40.0', require: false
   gem 'rubocop-rspec', '~> 1.5.0', require: false
   gem 'scss_lint', '~> 0.47.0', require: false
@@ -321,13 +326,6 @@ group :production do
   gem "gitlab_meta", '7.0'
 end
 
-group :spring, optional: true do
-  gem 'spring',                   '~> 1.7.0'
-  gem 'spring-commands-rspec',    '~> 1.0.4'
-  gem 'spring-commands-spinach',  '~> 1.1.0'
-  gem 'spring-commands-teaspoon', '~> 0.0.2'
-end
-
 gem "newrelic_rpm", '~> 3.14'
 
 gem 'octokit', '~> 4.3.0'
diff --git a/bin/spring b/bin/spring
index 7fe232c3aae..e0d140fe0c7 100755
--- a/bin/spring
+++ b/bin/spring
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 # This file loads spring without using Bundler, in order to be fast.
 # It gets overwritten when you run the `spring binstub` command.
 
-unless defined?(Spring)
+unless (defined?(Spring) || ENV['ENABLE_SPRING'] != '1') && File.basename($0) != 'spring'
   require 'rubygems'
   require 'bundler'