diff --git a/.gitmodules b/.gitmodules
deleted file mode 100644
index 64cfebb5..00000000
--- a/.gitmodules
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,6 +0,0 @@
-[submodule "bench/lib/nlohmann"]
-	path = bench/lib/nlohmann
-	url = https://github.com/nlohmann/json.git
-[submodule "bench/lib/rapidjson"]
-	path = bench/lib/rapidjson
-	url = https://github.com/Tencent/rapidjson.git
diff --git a/bench/.gitignore b/bench/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..c3af8579
--- /dev/null
+++ b/bench/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+lib/
diff --git a/bench/README.md b/bench/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..ea06cdbd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/bench/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# Boost.JSON Benchmarks
+
+To run the benchmarks first run clone.sh to
+fetch the third party repositories. Then run
+the bench program with no arguments for a
+list of command line options.
diff --git a/bench/clone.sh b/bench/clone.sh
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..53c56419
--- /dev/null
+++ b/bench/clone.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+mkdir -p lib
+cd lib
+git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Tencent/rapidjson.git rapidjson
+git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nlohmann/json.git nlohmann
diff --git a/bench/lib/nlohmann b/bench/lib/nlohmann
deleted file mode 160000
index 99d7518d..00000000
--- a/bench/lib/nlohmann
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-Subproject commit 99d7518d21cbbfe91d341a5431438bf7559c6974
diff --git a/bench/lib/rapidjson b/bench/lib/rapidjson
deleted file mode 160000
index 814bb27b..00000000
--- a/bench/lib/rapidjson
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-Subproject commit 814bb27bf0f1e3e924fc5c8e374dedf85c9cc70a