diff --git a/Makefile.PL b/Makefile.PL
index 2051c988..6c7ef4b6 100644
--- a/Makefile.PL
+++ b/Makefile.PL
@@ -33,7 +33,6 @@ my %WriteMakefileArgs = (
     "BSON::Types" => 0,
     "Carp" => 0,
     "Compress::Zlib" => 0,
-    "Compress::Snappy" => 0,
     "Digest::MD5" => 0,
     "Encode" => 0,
     "Exporter" => "5.57",
diff --git a/dist.ini b/dist.ini
index 10a7af77..968c0f49 100644
--- a/dist.ini
+++ b/dist.ini
@@ -226,6 +226,7 @@ remove = Authen::SASL
 remove = BSON::XS
 remove = Class::XSAccessor
 remove = Compress::Zstd
+remove = Compress::Snappy
 remove = DateTime
 remove = DateTime::Tiny
 remove = Errno
diff --git a/lib/MongoDB/_Protocol.pm b/lib/MongoDB/_Protocol.pm
index bf8fb518..0fe301cf 100644
--- a/lib/MongoDB/_Protocol.pm
+++ b/lib/MongoDB/_Protocol.pm
@@ -26,7 +26,6 @@ use MongoDB::Error;
 use MongoDB::_Types qw/ to_IxHash /;
 
 use Compress::Zlib ();
-use Compress::Snappy ();
 
 use constant {
     OP_REPLY        => 1,    # Reply to a client request. responseTo is set
@@ -322,6 +321,11 @@ sub _assert_zstd {
       unless eval { require Compress::Zstd };
 }
 
+sub _assert_snappy {
+    MongoDB::UsageError->throw(qq/Compress::Snappy must be installed to support snappy compression\n/)
+      unless eval { require Compress::Snappy };
+}
+
 # decompressors indexed by ID.
 my @DECOMPRESSOR = (
     # none
@@ -345,6 +349,7 @@ sub get_compressor {
         };
     }
     elsif ($name eq 'snappy') {
+        _assert_snappy();
         return {
             id => 1,
             callback => sub { Compress::Snappy::compress(shift) },