diff --git a/client/gulpfile.js b/client/gulpfile.js
index ba5cc9d3eeb2..e0462c990813 100644
--- a/client/gulpfile.js
+++ b/client/gulpfile.js
@@ -131,4 +131,4 @@ gulp.task("watch-style", function() {
 
 gulp.task("staging", ["stage-libs", "fonts"]);
 
-gulp.task("default", ["scripts", "libs", "plugins"]);
+gulp.task("default", ["scripts", "libs"]);
diff --git a/lib/galaxy/dependencies/pipfiles/default/Pipfile b/lib/galaxy/dependencies/pipfiles/default/Pipfile
index a3f3ef2157d8..25084d86dbc3 100644
--- a/lib/galaxy/dependencies/pipfiles/default/Pipfile
+++ b/lib/galaxy/dependencies/pipfiles/default/Pipfile
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ verify_ssl = true
 name = "pypi"
 
 [dev-packages]
+gunicorn = "*"
 lxml = "!=4.2.2"
 mock = "*"
 NoseHTML = "*"
diff --git a/lib/galaxy/dependencies/pipfiles/default/pinned-dev-requirements.txt b/lib/galaxy/dependencies/pipfiles/default/pinned-dev-requirements.txt
index ed8f4f53b1cb..42015ccacf34 100644
--- a/lib/galaxy/dependencies/pipfiles/default/pinned-dev-requirements.txt
+++ b/lib/galaxy/dependencies/pipfiles/default/pinned-dev-requirements.txt
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ chardet==3.0.4
 commonmark==0.5.4
 docutils==0.14
 funcsigs==1.0.2; python_version < '3.3'
+gunicorn==19.9.0
 idna==2.7
 imagesize==1.1.0; python_version != '3.3.*'
 jinja2==2.10
diff --git a/scripts/common_startup_functions.sh b/scripts/common_startup_functions.sh
index be9b23bee814..2ee598572b46 100644
--- a/scripts/common_startup_functions.sh
+++ b/scripts/common_startup_functions.sh
@@ -157,6 +157,10 @@ find_server() {
         fi
         server_args="$server_args $uwsgi_args"
         pid_log_paster_args=""
+    elif [ "$APP_WEBSERVER" = "gunicorn" ];
+    then
+        export GUNICORN_CMD_ARGS="${GUNICORN_CMD_ARGS:-\"--bind=localhost:8080\"}"
+        server_args="$APP_WEBSERVER --pythonpath lib --paste \"$server_config\""
     else
         run_server="python"
         server_args="./scripts/paster.py serve \"$server_config\" $paster_args"