diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 84dd237..384f72c 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -141,11 +141,18 @@ for more information.
   when doing case-insensitive key matching. In the future, case-insensitive
   object key matching may be provided via an option to the generator.
 
-* easyjson makes use of `unsafe`. While a "safe" version of easyjson could
-  be written, `unsafe` simplifies the code and provides significant performance
-  benefits by allowing no-copy conversion from `[]byte` to `string`. That said,
-  `unsafe` is used only when unmarshaling and parsing JSON, and any `unsafe`
-  operations / memory allocations done will be safely deallocated by easyjson.
+* easyjson makes use of `unsafe`, which simplifies the code and
+  provides significant performance benefits by allowing no-copy
+  conversion from `[]byte` to `string`. That said, `unsafe` is used
+  only when unmarshaling and parsing JSON, and any `unsafe` operations
+  / memory allocations done will be safely deallocated by
+  easyjson. Set the build tag `easyjson_nounsafe` to compile it
+  without `unsafe`.
+
+* easyjson is compatible with Google App Engine. The `appengine` build
+  tag (set by App Engine's environment) will automatically disable the
+  use of `unsafe`, which is not allowed in App Engine's Standard
+  Environment. Note that the use with App Engine is still experimental.
 
 * Floats are formatted using the default precision from Go's `strconv` package.
   As such, easyjson will not correctly handle high precision floats when
@@ -165,7 +172,8 @@ for more information.
 
 ## Benchmarks
 
-Most benchmarks were done using the example [13kB example JSON](https://dev.twitter.com/rest/reference/get/search/tweets)
+Most benchmarks were done using the example
+[13kB example JSON](https://dev.twitter.com/rest/reference/get/search/tweets)
 (9k after eliminating whitespace). This example is similar to real-world data,
 is well-structured, and contains a healthy variety of different types, making
 it ideal for JSON serialization benchmarks.
@@ -178,6 +186,9 @@ Note:
 * For large request marshaling benchmarks, a struct containing 50 regular
   samples was used, making a ~500kB output JSON.
 
+* Benchmarks are showing the results of easyjson's default behaviour,
+  which makes use of `unsafe`.
+
 Benchmarks are available in the repository and can be run by invoking `make`.
 
 ### easyjson vs. encoding/json
diff --git a/benchmark/data_codec.go b/benchmark/data_codec.go
index 0bb8c4c..d2d83fa 100644
--- a/benchmark/data_codec.go
+++ b/benchmark/data_codec.go
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
 //+build use_codec
+//+build !easyjson_nounsafe
+//+build !appengine
 
 // ************************************************************
 // DO NOT EDIT.
@@ -10,10 +12,11 @@ package benchmark
 import (
 	"errors"
 	"fmt"
-	codec1978 "github.com/ugorji/go/codec"
 	"reflect"
 	"runtime"
 	"unsafe"
+
+	codec1978 "github.com/ugorji/go/codec"
 )
 
 const (
diff --git a/jlexer/bytestostr.go b/jlexer/bytestostr.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2ed8042
--- /dev/null
+++ b/jlexer/bytestostr.go
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+// This file will only be included to the build if neither
+// easyjson_nounsafe nor appengine build tag is set. See README notes
+// for more details.
+
+//+build !easyjson_nounsafe
+//+build !appengine
+
+package jlexer
+
+import (
+	"reflect"
+	"unsafe"
+)
+
+// bytesToStr creates a string pointing at the slice to avoid copying.
+//
+// Warning: the string returned by the function should be used with care, as the whole input data
+// chunk may be either blocked from being freed by GC because of a single string or the buffer.Data
+// may be garbage-collected even when the string exists.
+func bytesToStr(data []byte) string {
+	h := (*reflect.SliceHeader)(unsafe.Pointer(&data))
+	shdr := reflect.StringHeader{h.Data, h.Len}
+	return *(*string)(unsafe.Pointer(&shdr))
+}
diff --git a/jlexer/bytestostr_nounsafe.go b/jlexer/bytestostr_nounsafe.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..864d1be
--- /dev/null
+++ b/jlexer/bytestostr_nounsafe.go
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+// This file is included to the build if any of the buildtags below
+// are defined. Refer to README notes for more details.
+
+//+build easyjson_nounsafe appengine
+
+package jlexer
+
+// bytesToStr creates a string normally from []byte
+//
+// Note that this method is roughly 1.5x slower than using the 'unsafe' method.
+func bytesToStr(data []byte) string {
+	return string(data)
+}
diff --git a/jlexer/lexer.go b/jlexer/lexer.go
index c8a5d07..ae8344e 100644
--- a/jlexer/lexer.go
+++ b/jlexer/lexer.go
@@ -9,12 +9,10 @@ import (
 	"errors"
 	"fmt"
 	"io"
-	"reflect"
 	"strconv"
 	"unicode"
 	"unicode/utf16"
 	"unicode/utf8"
-	"unsafe"
 )
 
 // tokenKind determines type of a token.
@@ -205,17 +203,6 @@ func (r *Lexer) fetchFalse() {
 	}
 }
 
-// bytesToStr creates a string pointing at the slice to avoid copying.
-//
-// Warning: the string returned by the function should be used with care, as the whole input data
-// chunk may be either blocked from being freed by GC because of a single string or the buffer.Data
-// may be garbage-collected even when the string exists.
-func bytesToStr(data []byte) string {
-	h := (*reflect.SliceHeader)(unsafe.Pointer(&data))
-	shdr := reflect.StringHeader{h.Data, h.Len}
-	return *(*string)(unsafe.Pointer(&shdr))
-}
-
 // fetchNumber scans a number literal token.
 func (r *Lexer) fetchNumber() {
 	hasE := false