diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 5003470..b402be5 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -9,12 +9,14 @@ keywords = ["utf8", "unicode", "string", "validation", "simd"]
 categories = ["encoding", "algorithms", "no-std", "text-processing"]
 readme = "README.md"
 rust-version = "1.78.0"
+links = "simdutf"
 
 [package.metadata.docs.rs]
 rustdoc-args = ["--cfg", "docsrs"]
 
 [features]
-default = ["detect_encoding", "ascii", "latin1", "utf8", "utf16", "utf32", "base64"]
+default = ["bundled", "detect_encoding", "ascii", "latin1", "utf8", "utf16", "utf32", "base64"]
+bundled = []
 detect_encoding = []
 ascii = []
 latin1 = []
diff --git a/build.rs b/build.rs
index 1b17ca4..11357f3 100644
--- a/build.rs
+++ b/build.rs
@@ -29,5 +29,20 @@ fn main() {
     feature_define(&mut cc, "UTF32", "SIMDUTF_FEATURE_UTF32");
     feature_define(&mut cc, "BASE64", "SIMDUTF_FEATURE_BASE64");
 
+    println!("cargo:rerun-if-env-changed=SIMDUTF_LIB_DIR");
+    println!("cargo:rerun-if-env-changed=SIMDUTF_LIB_NAME");
+    if cfg!(feature = "bundled") {
+        cc.define("SIMDUTFRS_BUNDLED", None);
+    } else {
+        if let Some(dir) = std::env::var_os("SIMDUTF_LIB_DIR") {
+            println!("cargo:rustc-link-search=native={}", std::path::Path::new(&dir).display());
+        }
+        if let Ok(name) = std::env::var("SIMDUTF_LIB_NAME") {
+            if !name.is_empty() {
+                println!("cargo:rustc-link-lib={name}");
+            }
+        }
+    }
+
     cc.file("cpp/simdutfrs.cpp").compile("simdutfrs");
 }
diff --git a/codegen/src/bindings.rs b/codegen/src/bindings.rs
index eb8af9c..ae5cef0 100644
--- a/codegen/src/bindings.rs
+++ b/codegen/src/bindings.rs
@@ -36,7 +36,11 @@ fn decl_cpp_endif2(from: &str, to: &str) {
 pub fn codegen_cpp() {
     glines![
         "// Auto generated by codegen/src/bindings.rs"
+        "#ifdef SIMDUTFRS_BUNDLED"
         "#include \"simdutf.cpp\""
+        "#else"
+        "#include \"simdutf.h\""
+        "#endif"
         "#include \"simdutfrs_extra.cpp\""
         ""
         "extern \"C\" {"
diff --git a/cpp/simdutfrs.cpp b/cpp/simdutfrs.cpp
index 8ee3af0..ad8b9d9 100644
--- a/cpp/simdutfrs.cpp
+++ b/cpp/simdutfrs.cpp
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 // Auto generated by codegen/src/bindings.rs
+#ifdef SIMDUTFRS_BUNDLED
 #include "simdutf.cpp"
+#else
+#include "simdutf.h"
+#endif
 #include "simdutfrs_extra.cpp"
 
 extern "C" {