diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
index 5136756079d..59c71699421 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ v 8.9.0 (unreleased)
   - Make authentication service for Container Registry to be compatible with < Docker 1.11
   - Add Application Setting to configure Container Registry token expire delay (default 5min)
   - Cache assigned issue and merge request counts in sidebar nav
+  - Use Knapsack only in CI environment
   - Cache project build count in sidebar nav
   - Reduce number of queries needed to render issue labels in the sidebar
   - Improve error handling importing projects
diff --git a/features/support/env.rb b/features/support/env.rb
index 4552db8ad77..edc08cf0986 100644
--- a/features/support/env.rb
+++ b/features/support/env.rb
@@ -11,13 +11,15 @@ ENV['RAILS_ENV'] = 'test'
 require './config/environment'
 require 'rspec/expectations'
 require 'sidekiq/testing/inline'
-require 'knapsack'
 
 require_relative 'capybara'
 require_relative 'db_cleaner'
 require_relative 'rerun'
 
-Knapsack::Adapters::SpinachAdapter.bind
+if ENV['CI']
+  require 'knapsack'
+  Knapsack::Adapters::RSpecAdapter.bind
+end
 
 %w(select2_helper test_env repo_helpers).each do |f|
   require Rails.root.join('spec', 'support', f)
diff --git a/spec/spec_helper.rb b/spec/spec_helper.rb
index a20f4c05971..b43f38ef202 100644
--- a/spec/spec_helper.rb
+++ b/spec/spec_helper.rb
@@ -15,9 +15,11 @@ require 'rspec/rails'
 require 'shoulda/matchers'
 require 'sidekiq/testing/inline'
 require 'rspec/retry'
-require 'knapsack'
 
-Knapsack::Adapters::RSpecAdapter.bind
+if ENV['CI']
+  require 'knapsack'
+  Knapsack::Adapters::RSpecAdapter.bind
+end
 
 # Requires supporting ruby files with custom matchers and macros, etc,
 # in spec/support/ and its subdirectories.