diff --git a/History.markdown b/History.markdown
index 3b633a7c..6988a787 100644
--- a/History.markdown
+++ b/History.markdown
@@ -1,12 +1,13 @@
 ## HEAD
 
 ### Major Enhancements
-  * Rename the `pygments` option to `highlighter`
   * Add gem-based plugin whitelist to safe mode (#1657)
   * Replace the commander command line parser with a more robust
     solution for our needs called `mercenary` (#1706)
   * Remove support for Ruby 1.8.x (#1780)
   * Move to jekyll/jekyll from mojombo/jekyll (#1817)
+  * Rename the `pygments` option to `highlighter` (#1859)
+  * Provide support for the Rouge syntax highlighter (#1859)
 
 ### Minor Enhancements
   * Move the EntryFilter class into the Jekyll module to avoid polluting the
@@ -25,7 +26,7 @@
 ### Development Fixes
   * Add a link to the site in the README.md file (#1795)
   * Add in History and site changes from `v1-stable` branch (#1836)
-  * Fix the `highlight` tag feature
+  * Fix the `highlight` tag feature (#1859)
 
 ### Site Enhancements
   * Document Kramdown's GFM parser option (#1791)
diff --git a/features/site_configuration.feature b/features/site_configuration.feature
index 50d0fff1..6d3ea647 100644
--- a/features/site_configuration.feature
+++ b/features/site_configuration.feature
@@ -98,6 +98,14 @@ Feature: Site configuration
     And I should see "Hello world!" in "_site/index.html"
     And I should see "class=\"highlight\"" in "_site/index.html"
 
+  Scenario: Highlight code with rouge
+    Given I have an "index.html" page that contains "{% highlight ruby %} puts 'Hello world!' {% endhighlight %}"
+    And I have a configuration file with "highlighter" set to "rouge"
+    When I run jekyll
+    Then the _site directory should exist
+    And I should see "Hello world!" in "_site/index.html"
+    And I should see "class=\"highlight\"" in "_site/index.html"
+
   Scenario: Set time and no future dated posts
     Given I have a _layouts directory
     And I have a page layout that contains "Page Layout: {{ site.posts.size }} on {{ site.time | date: "%Y-%m-%d" }}"
diff --git a/jekyll.gemspec b/jekyll.gemspec
index 1b1f4ef2..e62e5380 100644
--- a/jekyll.gemspec
+++ b/jekyll.gemspec
@@ -52,6 +52,7 @@ Gem::Specification.new do |s|
   s.add_development_dependency('activesupport', '~> 3.2.13')
   s.add_development_dependency('jekyll_test_plugin')
   s.add_development_dependency('jekyll_test_plugin_malicious')
+  s.add_development_dependency('rouge', '~> 1.0')
 
   # = MANIFEST =
   s.files = %w[
diff --git a/lib/jekyll/converters/markdown/redcarpet_parser.rb b/lib/jekyll/converters/markdown/redcarpet_parser.rb
index 9e96c35e..7ad33dd2 100644
--- a/lib/jekyll/converters/markdown/redcarpet_parser.rb
+++ b/lib/jekyll/converters/markdown/redcarpet_parser.rb
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ module Jekyll
 
         module CommonMethods
           def add_code_tags(code, lang)
-            code = code.sub(/<pre>/, "<pre><code class=\"#{lang} language-#{lang}\" data-lang=\"#{lang}\">")
+            code = code.sub(/<pre(.*?)>/, "<pre><code class=\"#{lang} language-#{lang}\" data-lang=\"#{lang}\">")
             code = code.sub(/<\/pre>/,"</code></pre>")
           end
         end
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ module Jekyll
           end
         end
 
-        module WithoutPygments
+        module WithoutHighlighting
           require 'cgi'
 
           include CommonMethods
@@ -37,6 +37,22 @@ module Jekyll
           end
         end
 
+        module WithRouge
+          include CommonMethods
+
+          def block_code(code, lang)
+            require 'rouge'
+
+            lexer = Rouge::Lexer.find_fancy(lang, code) || Rouge::Lexers::PlainText
+            formatter = Rouge::Formatters::HTML.new
+
+            output = "<div class=\"highlight\">"
+            output << add_code_tags(formatter.render(lexer.lex(code)), lang)
+            output << "</div>"
+          end
+        end
+
+
         def initialize(config)
           require 'redcarpet'
           @config = config
@@ -48,9 +64,13 @@ module Jekyll
                           Class.new(Redcarpet::Render::HTML) do
                             include WithPygments
                           end
+                        when 'rouge'
+                          Class.new(Redcarpet::Render::HTML) do
+                            include WithRouge
+                          end
                         else
                           Class.new(Redcarpet::Render::HTML) do
-                            include WithoutPygments
+                            include WithoutHighlighting
                           end
                         end
         rescue LoadError
diff --git a/lib/jekyll/tags/highlight.rb b/lib/jekyll/tags/highlight.rb
index a20e90c0..eb6bf5a3 100644
--- a/lib/jekyll/tags/highlight.rb
+++ b/lib/jekyll/tags/highlight.rb
@@ -44,6 +44,8 @@ eos
         case context.registers[:site].highlighter
         when 'pygments'
           render_pygments(context, super)
+        when 'rouge'
+          render_rouge(context, super)
         else
           render_codehighlighter(context, super)
         end
@@ -65,6 +67,22 @@ eos
         return output
       end
 
+      def render_rouge(context, code)
+        require 'rouge'
+
+        linenos = @options.keys.include?('linenos')
+        lexer = Rouge::Lexer.find_fancy(@lang, code) || Rouge::Lexers::PlainText
+        formatter = Rouge::Formatters::HTML.new(line_numbers: linenos)
+
+        output = context["highlighter_prefix"] || ""
+        output << "<div class=\"highlight\">"
+        output << add_code_tags(formatter.render(lexer.lex(code)), @lang)
+        output << "</div>"
+        output << context["highlighter_suffix"] if context["highlighter_suffix"]
+
+        return output
+      end
+
       def render_codehighlighter(context, code)
         #The div is required because RDiscount blows ass
         <<-HTML
diff --git a/site/_config.yml b/site/_config.yml
index f14c4e05..fc1fd46d 100644
--- a/site/_config.yml
+++ b/site/_config.yml
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-pygments: true
+highlight: pygments
 relative_permalinks: false
 gauges_id: 503c5af6613f5d0f19000027
 permalink: /news/:year/:month/:day/:title/
diff --git a/site/docs/configuration.md b/site/docs/configuration.md
index df93d9c6..8740d987 100644
--- a/site/docs/configuration.md
+++ b/site/docs/configuration.md
@@ -288,7 +288,7 @@ encoding:    nil
 future:      true
 show_drafts: nil
 limit_posts: 0
-pygments:    true
+highlighter: pygments
 
 relative_permalinks: true
 
@@ -362,7 +362,7 @@ Jekyll handles two special Redcarpet extensions:
         # ...ruby code
         ```
 
-    With both fenced code blocks and pygments enabled, this will statically highlight the code; without pygments, it will add a `class="LANGUAGE"` attribute to the `<code>` element, which can be used as a hint by various JavaScript code highlighting libraries.
+    With both fenced code blocks and highlighter enabled, this will statically highlight the code; without any syntax highlighter, it will add a `class="LANGUAGE"` attribute to the `<code>` element, which can be used as a hint by various JavaScript code highlighting libraries.
 - `smart` --- This pseudo-extension turns on SmartyPants, which converts straight quotes to curly quotes and runs of hyphens to em (`---`) and en (`--`) dashes.
 
 All other extensions retain their usual names from Redcarpet, and no renderer options aside from `smart` can be specified in Jekyll. [A list of available extensions can be found in the Redcarpet README file.][redcarpet_extensions] Make sure you're looking at the README for the right version of Redcarpet: Jekyll currently uses v2.2.x, and extensions like `footnotes` and `highlight` weren't added until after version 3.0.0. The most commonly used extensions are:
@@ -380,4 +380,4 @@ In addition to the defaults mentioned above, you can also turn on recognition of
 For example, in your `_config.yml`:
 
     kramdown:
-      input: GFM
\ No newline at end of file
+      input: GFM
diff --git a/site/docs/installation.md b/site/docs/installation.md
index 8fb82a0a..977e9d9c 100644
--- a/site/docs/installation.md
+++ b/site/docs/installation.md
@@ -66,9 +66,9 @@ Check out [the extras page](../extras/) for more information.
   <h5>ProTip™: Enable Syntax Highlighting</h5>
   <p>
     If you’re the kind of person who is using Jekyll, then chances are you’ll
-    want to enable syntax highlighting using Pygments. You should really
-    <a href="../templates/#code_snippet_highlighting">check out how to do
-    that</a> before you go any further.
+    want to enable syntax highlighting using Pygments or Rouge. You should
+    really <a href="../templates/#code_snippet_highlighting">check out how to
+    do that</a> before you go any further.
   </p>
 </div>
 
diff --git a/site/docs/posts.md b/site/docs/posts.md
index 88036bdb..73899a3b 100644
--- a/site/docs/posts.md
+++ b/site/docs/posts.md
@@ -139,8 +139,8 @@ your `excerpt_separator` to `""`.
 ## Highlighting code snippets
 
 Jekyll also has built-in support for syntax highlighting of code snippets using
-Pygments, and including a code snippet in any post is easy. Just use the
-dedicated Liquid tag as follows:
+either Pygments or [Rouge](https://github.com/jayferd/rouge), and including a
+code snippet in any post is easy. Just use the dedicated Liquid tag as follows:
 
 {% highlight text %}
 {% raw %}{% highlight ruby %}{% endraw %}
diff --git a/site/docs/templates.md b/site/docs/templates.md
index 7cf2a865..236aaaea 100644
--- a/site/docs/templates.md
+++ b/site/docs/templates.md
@@ -232,8 +232,14 @@ These parameters are available via Liquid in the include:
 
 Jekyll has built in support for syntax highlighting of [over 100
 languages](http://pygments.org/languages/) thanks to
-[Pygments](http://pygments.org/). To use Pygments, you must have Python installed on your
-system and set `pygments` to `true` in your site's configuration file.
+[Pygments](http://pygments.org/). To use Pygments, you must have Python installed
+on your system and set `highlighter` to `pygments` in your site's configuration
+file.
+
+Alternatively, you can use [Rouge](https://github.com/jayferd/rouge) to highlight
+your code snippets. It doesn't support as many languages as Pygments does but
+it should fit in most cases and it's written in pure Ruby ; you don't need Python
+on your system!
 
 To render a code block with syntax highlighting, surround your code as follows:
 
@@ -249,8 +255,9 @@ end
 
 The argument to the `highlight` tag (`ruby` in the example above) is the
 language identifier. To find the appropriate identifier to use for the language
-you want to highlight, look for the “short name” on the [Lexers
-page](http://pygments.org/docs/lexers/).
+you want to highlight, look for the “short name” on the [Pygments' Lexers
+page](http://pygments.org/docs/lexers/) or the [Rouge
+wiki](https://github.com/jayferd/rouge/wiki/List-of-supported-languages-and-lexers).
 
 #### Line numbers
 
@@ -290,7 +297,7 @@ will generate the correct permalink URL for the post you specify.
 {% endraw %}
 {% endhighlight %}
 
-If you organize your posts in subdirectories, you need to include subdirectory 
+If you organize your posts in subdirectories, you need to include subdirectory
 path to the post:
 
 {% highlight text %}
diff --git a/site/docs/troubleshooting.md b/site/docs/troubleshooting.md
index e481af6b..c27c1665 100644
--- a/site/docs/troubleshooting.md
+++ b/site/docs/troubleshooting.md
@@ -123,8 +123,8 @@ bug](http://aaronqian.com/articles/2009/04/07/redcloth-ate-my-notextile.html)
 and will hopefully be fixed for 4.2. You can still use 4.1.9, but the
 test suite requires that 4.1.0 be installed. If you use a version of
 RedCloth that does not have the notextile tag, you may notice that
-syntax highlighted blocks from Pygments are not formatted correctly,
-among other things. If you’re seeing this just install 4.1.0.
+syntax highlighted blocks from Pygments or Rouge are not formatted
+correctly, among other things. If you’re seeing this just install 4.1.0.
 
 ### Liquid
 
diff --git a/test/test_redcarpet.rb b/test/test_redcarpet.rb
index c8354c4b..dabcd62c 100644
--- a/test/test_redcarpet.rb
+++ b/test/test_redcarpet.rb
@@ -42,6 +42,22 @@ puts "Hello world"
       end
     end
 
+    context "with rouge enabled" do
+      setup do
+        @markdown = Converters::Markdown.new @config.merge({ 'highlighter' => 'rouge' })
+      end
+
+      should "render fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting" do
+        assert_equal "<div class=\"highlight\"><pre><code class=\"ruby language-ruby\" data-lang=\"ruby\"><span class=\"nb\">puts</span> <span class=\"s2\">\"Hello world\"</span>\n</code></pre></div>", @markdown.convert(
+          <<-EOS
+```ruby
+puts "Hello world"
+```
+          EOS
+        ).strip
+      end
+    end
+
     context "without any highlighter" do
       setup do
         @markdown = Converters::Markdown.new @config.merge({ 'highlighter' => nil })