diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 5429956b..9c6d93df 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ lazy_static = "^1.4"
 libc = { version = "^0.2", optional = true }
 parking_lot = "^0.11"
 protobuf = { version = "^2.0", optional = true }
-regex = "^1.3"
+memchr = "^2.3"
 reqwest = { version = "^0.11", features = ["blocking"], optional = true }
 thiserror = "^1.0"
 
diff --git a/src/desc.rs b/src/desc.rs
index f5c0df21..e5c0f9a0 100644
--- a/src/desc.rs
+++ b/src/desc.rs
@@ -5,30 +5,44 @@ use std::collections::{BTreeSet, HashMap};
 use std::hash::Hasher;
 
 use fnv::FnvHasher;
-use regex::Regex;
 
 use crate::errors::{Error, Result};
 use crate::metrics::SEPARATOR_BYTE;
 use crate::proto::LabelPair;
 
-// Details of required format are at
-// https://prometheus.io/docs/concepts/data_model/#metric-names-and-labels
-fn is_valid_metric_name(name: &str) -> bool {
-    lazy_static! {
-        static ref VALIDATOR: Regex =
-            Regex::new("^[a-zA-Z_:][a-zA-Z0-9_:]*$").expect("Regex to be valid.");
-    }
+// [a-zA-Z_]
+fn matches_charset_without_colon(c: char) -> bool {
+    c.is_ascii_alphabetic() || c == '_'
+}
 
-    VALIDATOR.is_match(name)
+// [a-zA-Z_:]
+fn matches_charset_with_colon(c: char) -> bool {
+    matches_charset_without_colon(c) || c == ':'
 }
 
-fn is_valid_label_name(name: &str) -> bool {
-    lazy_static! {
-        static ref VALIDATOR: Regex =
-            Regex::new("^[a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*$").expect("Regex to be valid.");
-    }
+// Equivalent to regex ^[?][?0-9]*$ where ? denotes char set as validated by charset_validator
+fn is_valid_ident<F: FnMut(char) -> bool>(input: &str, mut charset_validator: F) -> bool {
+    let mut chars = input.chars();
+    let zeroth = chars.next();
+    zeroth
+        .and_then(|zeroth| {
+            if charset_validator(zeroth) {
+                Some(chars.all(|c| charset_validator(c) || c.is_digit(10)))
+            } else {
+                None
+            }
+        })
+        .unwrap_or(false)
+}
+
+// Details of required format are at
+// https://prometheus.io/docs/concepts/data_model/#metric-names-and-labels
+pub(super) fn is_valid_metric_name(name: &str) -> bool {
+    is_valid_ident(name, matches_charset_with_colon)
+}
 
-    VALIDATOR.is_match(name)
+pub(super) fn is_valid_label_name(name: &str) -> bool {
+    is_valid_ident(name, matches_charset_without_colon)
 }
 
 /// The descriptor used by every Prometheus [`Metric`](crate::core::Metric). It is essentially
diff --git a/src/encoder/text.rs b/src/encoder/text.rs
index cfdeb64a..17516bc0 100644
--- a/src/encoder/text.rs
+++ b/src/encoder/text.rs
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 // Copyright 2019 TiKV Project Authors. Licensed under Apache-2.0.
 
-use regex::{Match, Regex};
 use std::borrow::Cow;
 use std::io::Write;
 
@@ -216,26 +215,21 @@ fn label_pairs_to_text(
     Ok(())
 }
 
+fn find_first_occurence(v: &str, include_double_quote: bool) -> Option<usize> {
+    if include_double_quote {
+        memchr::memchr3(b'\\', b'\n', b'\"', v.as_bytes())
+    } else {
+        memchr::memchr2(b'\\', b'\n', v.as_bytes())
+    }
+}
+
 /// `escape_string` replaces `\` by `\\`, new line character by `\n`, and `"` by `\"` if
 /// `include_double_quote` is true.
 ///
 /// Implementation adapted from
 /// https://lise-henry.github.io/articles/optimising_strings.html
 fn escape_string(v: &str, include_double_quote: bool) -> Cow<'_, str> {
-    // Regex compilation is expensive. Use `lazy_static` to compile the regexes
-    // once per process lifetime and not once per function invocation.
-    lazy_static! {
-        static ref ESCAPER: Regex = Regex::new("(\\\\|\n)").expect("Regex to be valid.");
-        static ref QUOTED_ESCAPER: Regex = Regex::new("(\\\\|\n|\")").expect("Regex to be valid.");
-    }
-
-    let first_occurence = if include_double_quote {
-        QUOTED_ESCAPER.find(v)
-    } else {
-        ESCAPER.find(v)
-    }
-    .as_ref()
-    .map(Match::start);
+    let first_occurence = find_first_occurence(v, include_double_quote);
 
     if let Some(first) = first_occurence {
         let mut escaped = String::with_capacity(v.len() * 2);