diff --git a/cmd/ipfs/main.go b/cmd/ipfs/main.go
index 817d72472..f5b035678 100644
--- a/cmd/ipfs/main.go
+++ b/cmd/ipfs/main.go
@@ -103,9 +103,13 @@ func main() {
 	}
 
 	// Handle `ipfs help'
-	if len(os.Args) == 2 && os.Args[1] == "help" {
-		printHelp(false, os.Stdout)
-		os.Exit(0)
+	if len(os.Args) == 2 {
+		if os.Args[1] == "help" {
+			printHelp(false, os.Stdout)
+			os.Exit(0)
+		} else if os.Args[1] == "--version" {
+			os.Args[1] = "version"
+		}
 	}
 
 	// parse the commandline into a command invocation
diff --git a/test/sharness/t0010-basic-commands.sh b/test/sharness/t0010-basic-commands.sh
index 4b05c99b6..a4d561435 100755
--- a/test/sharness/t0010-basic-commands.sh
+++ b/test/sharness/t0010-basic-commands.sh
@@ -16,11 +16,24 @@ test_expect_success "ipfs version succeeds" '
 	ipfs version >version.txt
 '
 
+test_expect_success "ipfs --version success" '
+    ipfs --version ||
+    test_fsh ipfs --version
+'
+
 test_expect_success "ipfs version output looks good" '
 	egrep "^ipfs version [0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]" version.txt >/dev/null ||
 	test_fsh cat version.txt
 '
 
+test_expect_success "ipfs versions matches ipfs --version" '
+    ipfs version > version.txt &&
+    ipfs --version > version2.txt &&
+    diff version2.txt version.txt ||
+    test_fsh ipfs --version
+
+'
+
 test_expect_success "ipfs version --all has all required fields" '
 	ipfs version --all > version_all.txt &&
 	grep "go-ipfs version" version_all.txt &&