diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/Tokenizer.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/Tokenizer.scala
index 0b1f90daa7d8e..68401e36950bd 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/Tokenizer.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/Tokenizer.scala
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ package org.apache.spark.ml.feature
 
 import org.apache.spark.annotation.AlphaComponent
 import org.apache.spark.ml.UnaryTransformer
-import org.apache.spark.ml.param.ParamMap
+import org.apache.spark.ml.param.{ParamMap, IntParam, BooleanParam, Param}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{DataType, StringType, ArrayType}
 
 /**
@@ -39,3 +39,67 @@ class Tokenizer extends UnaryTransformer[String, Seq[String], Tokenizer] {
 
   override protected def outputDataType: DataType = new ArrayType(StringType, false)
 }
+
+/**
+ * :: AlphaComponent ::
+ * A regex based tokenizer that extracts tokens either by repeatedly matching the regex(default) 
+ * or using it to split the text (set matching to false). Optional parameters also allow to fold
+ * the text to lowercase prior to it being tokenized and to filer tokens using a minimal length. 
+ * It returns an array of strings that can be empty.
+ * The default parameters are regex = "\\p{L}+|[^\\p{L}\\s]+", matching = true, 
+ * lowercase = false, minTokenLength = 1
+ */
+@AlphaComponent
+class RegexTokenizer extends UnaryTransformer[String, Seq[String], RegexTokenizer] {
+
+  /**
+   * param for minimum token length, default is one to avoid returning empty strings
+   * @group param
+   */
+  val minTokenLength: IntParam = new IntParam(this, "minLength", "minimum token length", Some(1))
+
+  /** @group setParam */
+  def setMinTokenLength(value: Int): this.type = set(minTokenLength, value)
+
+  /** @group getParam */
+  def getMinTokenLength: Int = get(minTokenLength)
+
+  /**
+   * param sets regex as splitting on gaps (true) or matching tokens (false)
+   * @group param
+   */
+  val gaps: BooleanParam = new BooleanParam(
+    this, "gaps", "Set regex to match gaps or tokens", Some(false))
+
+  /** @group setParam */
+  def setGaps(value: Boolean): this.type = set(gaps, value)
+
+  /** @group getParam */
+  def getGaps: Boolean = get(gaps)
+
+  /**
+   * param sets regex pattern used by tokenizer 
+   * @group param
+   */
+  val pattern: Param[String] = new Param(
+    this, "pattern", "regex pattern used for tokenizing", Some("\\p{L}+|[^\\p{L}\\s]+"))
+
+  /** @group setParam */
+  def setPattern(value: String): this.type = set(pattern, value)
+
+  /** @group getParam */
+  def getPattern: String = get(pattern)
+
+  override protected def createTransformFunc(paramMap: ParamMap): String => Seq[String] = { str =>
+    val re = paramMap(pattern).r
+    val tokens = if (paramMap(gaps)) re.split(str).toSeq else re.findAllIn(str).toSeq
+    val minLength = paramMap(minTokenLength)
+    tokens.filter(_.length >= minLength)
+  }
+
+  override protected def validateInputType(inputType: DataType): Unit = {
+    require(inputType == StringType, s"Input type must be string type but got $inputType.")
+  }
+
+  override protected def outputDataType: DataType = new ArrayType(StringType, false)
+}
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/java/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/JavaTokenizerSuite.java b/mllib/src/test/java/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/JavaTokenizerSuite.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..3806f650025b2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/mllib/src/test/java/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/JavaTokenizerSuite.java
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.apache.spark.ml.feature;
+
+import com.google.common.collect.Lists;
+import org.junit.After;
+import org.junit.Assert;
+import org.junit.Before;
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+import org.apache.spark.api.java.JavaRDD;
+import org.apache.spark.api.java.JavaSparkContext;
+import org.apache.spark.sql.DataFrame;
+import org.apache.spark.sql.Row;
+import org.apache.spark.sql.SQLContext;
+
+public class JavaTokenizerSuite {
+  private transient JavaSparkContext jsc;
+  private transient SQLContext jsql;
+
+  @Before
+  public void setUp() {
+    jsc = new JavaSparkContext("local", "JavaTokenizerSuite");
+    jsql = new SQLContext(jsc);
+  }
+
+  @After
+  public void tearDown() {
+    jsc.stop();
+    jsc = null;
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void regexTokenizer() {
+    RegexTokenizer myRegExTokenizer = new RegexTokenizer()
+      .setInputCol("rawText")
+      .setOutputCol("tokens")
+      .setPattern("\\s")
+      .setGaps(true)
+      .setMinTokenLength(3);
+
+    JavaRDD<TokenizerTestData> rdd = jsc.parallelize(Lists.newArrayList(
+      new TokenizerTestData("Test of tok.", new String[] {"Test", "tok."}),
+      new TokenizerTestData("Te,st.  punct", new String[] {"Te,st.", "punct"})
+    ));
+    DataFrame dataset = jsql.createDataFrame(rdd, TokenizerTestData.class);
+
+    Row[] pairs = myRegExTokenizer.transform(dataset)
+      .select("tokens", "wantedTokens")
+      .collect();
+
+    for (Row r : pairs) {
+      Assert.assertEquals(r.get(0), r.get(1));
+    }
+  }
+}
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/TokenizerSuite.scala b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/TokenizerSuite.scala
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..bf862b912d326
--- /dev/null
+++ b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/TokenizerSuite.scala
@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.apache.spark.ml.feature
+
+import scala.beans.BeanInfo
+
+import org.scalatest.FunSuite
+
+import org.apache.spark.mllib.util.MLlibTestSparkContext
+import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Row, SQLContext}
+
+@BeanInfo
+case class TokenizerTestData(rawText: String, wantedTokens: Seq[String]) {
+  /** Constructor used in [[org.apache.spark.ml.feature.JavaTokenizerSuite]] */
+  def this(rawText: String, wantedTokens: Array[String]) = this(rawText, wantedTokens.toSeq)
+}
+
+class RegexTokenizerSuite extends FunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext {
+  import org.apache.spark.ml.feature.RegexTokenizerSuite._
+  
+  @transient var sqlContext: SQLContext = _
+
+  override def beforeAll(): Unit = {
+    super.beforeAll()
+    sqlContext = new SQLContext(sc)
+  }
+
+  test("RegexTokenizer") {
+    val tokenizer = new RegexTokenizer()
+      .setInputCol("rawText")
+      .setOutputCol("tokens")
+
+    val dataset0 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(Seq(
+      TokenizerTestData("Test for tokenization.", Seq("Test", "for", "tokenization", ".")),
+      TokenizerTestData("Te,st. punct", Seq("Te", ",", "st", ".", "punct"))
+    ))
+    testRegexTokenizer(tokenizer, dataset0)
+
+    val dataset1 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(Seq(
+      TokenizerTestData("Test for tokenization.", Seq("Test", "for", "tokenization")),
+      TokenizerTestData("Te,st. punct", Seq("punct"))
+    ))
+
+    tokenizer.setMinTokenLength(3)
+    testRegexTokenizer(tokenizer, dataset1)
+
+    tokenizer
+      .setPattern("\\s")
+      .setGaps(true)
+      .setMinTokenLength(0)
+    val dataset2 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(Seq(
+      TokenizerTestData("Test for tokenization.", Seq("Test", "for", "tokenization.")),
+      TokenizerTestData("Te,st.  punct", Seq("Te,st.", "", "punct"))
+    ))
+    testRegexTokenizer(tokenizer, dataset2)
+  }
+}
+
+object RegexTokenizerSuite extends FunSuite {
+
+  def testRegexTokenizer(t: RegexTokenizer, dataset: DataFrame): Unit = {
+    t.transform(dataset)
+      .select("tokens", "wantedTokens")
+      .collect()
+      .foreach {
+        case Row(tokens, wantedTokens) =>
+          assert(tokens === wantedTokens)
+    }
+  }
+}