diff --git a/mb-util b/mb-util
index 7854264..9a90f5a 100755
--- a/mb-util
+++ b/mb-util
@@ -53,6 +53,11 @@ if __name__ == '__main__':
         action="store_true",
         default=False)
 
+    parser.add_option('--gzip', dest='gzip',
+        help='''Do gzip compression for all tiles (makes sense for pbf)''',
+        action="store_true",
+        default=False)
+
     parser.add_option('--silent', dest='silent',
         help='''Dictate whether the operations should run silently''',
         action="store_true",
diff --git a/mbutil/util.py b/mbutil/util.py
index 50f581c..c9d5f62 100755
--- a/mbutil/util.py
+++ b/mbutil/util.py
@@ -239,6 +239,10 @@ def disk_to_mbtiles(directory_path, mbtiles_file, **kwargs):
                         y = int(file_name)
 
                     if (ext == image_format):
+                        
+                        if kwargs.get('gzip', False):
+                            file_content = zlib.compress(file_content)
+                        
                         if not silent:
                             logger.debug(' Read tile from Zoom (z): %i\tCol (x): %i\tRow (y): %i' % (z, x, y))
                         cur.execute("""insert into tiles (zoom_level,