diff --git a/src/optimize/base_optimizer.js b/src/optimize/base_optimizer.js
index 5b4d1493725111..27d2a17ec79eb6 100644
--- a/src/optimize/base_optimizer.js
+++ b/src/optimize/base_optimizer.js
@@ -3,10 +3,6 @@ import { writeFile } from 'fs';
 import Boom from 'boom';
 import ExtractTextPlugin from 'extract-text-webpack-plugin';
 import webpack from 'webpack';
-import CommonsChunkPlugin from 'webpack/lib/optimize/CommonsChunkPlugin';
-import DefinePlugin from 'webpack/lib/DefinePlugin';
-import UglifyJsPlugin from 'webpack/lib/optimize/UglifyJsPlugin';
-import NoEmitOnErrorsPlugin from 'webpack/lib/NoEmitOnErrorsPlugin';
 import Stats from 'webpack/lib/Stats';
 import webpackMerge from 'webpack-merge';
 
@@ -98,6 +94,8 @@ export default class BaseOptimizer {
       });
     }
 
+    const nodeModulesPath = fromRoot('node_modules');
+
     /**
      * Adds a cache loader if we're running in dev mode. The reason we're not adding
      * the cache-loader when running in production mode is that it creates cache
@@ -141,12 +139,20 @@ export default class BaseOptimizer {
           allChunks: true
         }),
 
-        new CommonsChunkPlugin({
+        new webpack.optimize.CommonsChunkPlugin({
           name: 'commons',
-          filename: 'commons.bundle.js'
+          filename: 'commons.bundle.js',
+          minChunks: 2,
+        }),
+
+        new webpack.optimize.CommonsChunkPlugin({
+          name: 'vendors',
+          filename: 'vendors.bundle.js',
+          // only combine node_modules from Kibana
+          minChunks: module => module.context && module.context.indexOf(nodeModulesPath) !== -1
         }),
 
-        new NoEmitOnErrorsPlugin(),
+        new webpack.NoEmitOnErrorsPlugin(),
       ],
 
       module: {
@@ -233,12 +239,12 @@ export default class BaseOptimizer {
 
     return webpackMerge(commonConfig, {
       plugins: [
-        new DefinePlugin({
+        new webpack.DefinePlugin({
           'process.env': {
             'NODE_ENV': '"production"'
           }
         }),
-        new UglifyJsPlugin({
+        new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin({
           compress: {
             warnings: false
           },
diff --git a/src/ui/ui_render/views/ui_app.jade b/src/ui/ui_render/views/ui_app.jade
index 1595059410bfa0..120f26ad9046af 100644
--- a/src/ui/ui_render/views/ui_app.jade
+++ b/src/ui/ui_render/views/ui_app.jade
@@ -120,8 +120,11 @@ block content
         return anchor.href;
       }
       var files = [
+        bundleFile('vendors.style.css'),
         bundleFile('commons.style.css'),
         bundleFile('#{app.getId()}.style.css'),
+
+        bundleFile('vendors.bundle.js'),
         bundleFile('commons.bundle.js'),
         bundleFile('#{app.getId()}.bundle.js')
       ];
diff --git a/tasks/config/karma.js b/tasks/config/karma.js
index b362b5471c6e57..b72df5f6ad7097 100644
--- a/tasks/config/karma.js
+++ b/tasks/config/karma.js
@@ -37,8 +37,11 @@ module.exports = function (grunt) {
 
       // list of files / patterns to load in the browser
       files: [
+        'http://localhost:5610/bundles/vendors.bundle.js',
         'http://localhost:5610/bundles/commons.bundle.js',
         'http://localhost:5610/bundles/tests.bundle.js',
+
+        'http://localhost:5610/bundles/vendors.style.css',
         'http://localhost:5610/bundles/commons.style.css',
         'http://localhost:5610/bundles/tests.style.css'
       ],
@@ -126,8 +129,11 @@ module.exports = function (grunt) {
       singleRun: true,
       options: {
         files: [
+          'http://localhost:5610/bundles/vendors.bundle.js',
           'http://localhost:5610/bundles/commons.bundle.js',
           `http://localhost:5610/bundles/tests.bundle.js?shards=${TOTAL_CI_SHARDS}&shard_num=${n}`,
+
+          'http://localhost:5610/bundles/vendors.style.css',
           'http://localhost:5610/bundles/commons.style.css',
           'http://localhost:5610/bundles/tests.style.css'
         ]