diff --git a/src/pyff/builtins.py b/src/pyff/builtins.py
index 9c560956..211bf64e 100644
--- a/src/pyff/builtins.py
+++ b/src/pyff/builtins.py
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 from lxml.etree import DocumentInvalid
 from str2bool import str2bool
 
-from pyff.constants import NS
+from pyff.constants import NS, config
 from pyff.decorators import deprecated
 from pyff.exceptions import MetadataException
 from pyff.logs import get_log
@@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ def _p(e):
 
     from multiprocessing.pool import ThreadPool
 
-    pool = ThreadPool()
+    pool = ThreadPool(config.map_threads)
     result = pool.map(_p, iter_entities(req.t), chunksize=10)
     log.info(f"processed {len(result)} entities")
 
diff --git a/src/pyff/constants.py b/src/pyff/constants.py
index acdc9063..b9799b30 100644
--- a/src/pyff/constants.py
+++ b/src/pyff/constants.py
@@ -344,6 +344,10 @@ class Config:
         "info_buffer_size", default=10, typeconv=as_int, info="how much history to keep about each metadata URL"
     )
 
+    map_threads = S(
+        "map_threads", typeconv=as_int, info="how many threads to create in map pipe [default: os.process_cpu_count() ]"
+    )
+
     worker_pool_size = S(
         "worker_pool_size", default=1, cmdline=['pyffd'], typeconv=as_int, info="how many gunicorn workers to run"
     )