diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index a25260e35d..e93aadf8d1 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@
     "isomorphic-fetch": "^2.2.1",
     "linkifyjs": "^2.1.3",
     "lodash": "^4.13.1",
-    "marked": "^0.3.5",
+    "commonmark": "^0.27.0",
     "matrix-js-sdk": "matrix-org/matrix-js-sdk#develop",
     "optimist": "^0.6.1",
     "q": "^1.4.1",
diff --git a/src/Markdown.js b/src/Markdown.js
index a7b267b110..80805144e2 100644
--- a/src/Markdown.js
+++ b/src/Markdown.js
@@ -14,20 +14,7 @@ See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 limitations under the License.
 */
 
-import marked from 'marked';
-
-// marked only applies the default options on the high
-// level marked() interface, so we do it here.
-const marked_options = Object.assign({}, marked.defaults, {
-    gfm: true,
-    tables: true,
-    breaks: true,
-    pedantic: false,
-    sanitize: true,
-    smartLists: true,
-    smartypants: false,
-    xhtml: true, // return self closing tags (ie. <br /> not <br>)
-});
+import commonmark from 'commonmark';
 
 /**
  * Class that wraps marked, adding the ability to see whether
@@ -36,16 +23,7 @@ const marked_options = Object.assign({}, marked.defaults, {
  */
 export default class Markdown {
     constructor(input) {
-        const lexer = new marked.Lexer(marked_options);
-        this.tokens = lexer.lex(input);
-    }
-
-    _copyTokens() {
-        // copy tokens (the parser modifies its input arg)
-        const tokens_copy = this.tokens.slice();
-        // it also has a 'links' property, because this is javascript
-        // and why wouldn't you have an array that also has properties?
-        return Object.assign(tokens_copy, this.tokens);
+        this.input = input
     }
 
     isPlainText() {
@@ -64,65 +42,41 @@ export default class Markdown {
             is_plain = false;
         }
 
-        const dummy_renderer = {};
-        for (const k of Object.keys(marked.Renderer.prototype)) {
+        const dummy_renderer = new commonmark.HtmlRenderer();
+        for (const k of Object.keys(commonmark.HtmlRenderer.prototype)) {
             dummy_renderer[k] = setNotPlain;
         }
         // text and paragraph are just text
-        dummy_renderer.text = function(t){return t;}
-        dummy_renderer.paragraph = function(t){return t;}
+        dummy_renderer.text = function(t) { return t; }
+        dummy_renderer.paragraph = function(t) { return t; }
 
-        // ignore links where text is just the url:
-        // this ignores plain URLs that markdown has
-        // detected whilst preserving markdown syntax links
-        dummy_renderer.link = function(href, title, text) {
-            if (text != href) {
-                is_plain = false;
-            }
-        }
-
-        const dummy_options = Object.assign({}, marked_options, {
-            renderer: dummy_renderer,
-        });
-        const dummy_parser = new marked.Parser(dummy_options);
-        dummy_parser.parse(this._copyTokens());
+        const dummy_parser = new commonmark.Parser();
+        dummy_renderer.render(dummy_parser.parse(this.input));
 
         return is_plain;
     }
 
     toHTML() {
-        const real_renderer = new marked.Renderer();
-        real_renderer.link = function(href, title, text) {
-            // prevent marked from turning plain URLs
-            // into links, because its algorithm is fairly
-            // poor. Let's send plain URLs rather than
-            // badly linkified ones (the linkifier Vector
-            // uses on message display is way better, eg.
-            // handles URLs with closing parens at the end).
-            if (text == href) {
-                return href;
-            }
-            return marked.Renderer.prototype.link.apply(this, arguments);
-        }
+        const parser = new commonmark.Parser();
 
-        real_renderer.paragraph = (text) => {
-            // The tokens at the top level are the 'blocks', so if we
-            // have more than one, there are multiple 'paragraphs'.
-            // If there is only one top level token, just return the
+        const renderer = new commonmark.HtmlRenderer({safe: true});
+        const real_paragraph = renderer.paragraph;
+        renderer.paragraph = function(node, entering) {
+            // If there is only one top level node, just return the
             // bare text: it's a single line of text and so should be
-            // 'inline', rather than necessarily wrapped in its own
-            // p tag. If, however, we have multiple tokens, each gets
+            // 'inline', rather than unnecessarily wrapped in its own
+            // p tag. If, however, we have multiple nodes, each gets
             // its own p tag to keep them as separate paragraphs.
-            if (this.tokens.length == 1) {
-                return text;
+            var par = node;
+            while (par.parent) {
+                par = par.parent
+            }
+            if (par.firstChild != par.lastChild) {
+                real_paragraph.bind(this)(node, entering);
             }
-            return '<p>' + text + '</p>';
         }
 
-        const real_options = Object.assign({}, marked_options, {
-            renderer: real_renderer,
-        });
-        const real_parser = new marked.Parser(real_options);
-        return real_parser.parse(this._copyTokens());
+        var parsed = parser.parse(this.input);
+        return renderer.render(parsed);
     }
 }