diff --git a/docs/changelog.md b/docs/changelog.md
index 5de34956..76fe8dfd 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.md
+++ b/docs/changelog.md
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 ### 0.7.9 - (In Progress)
 
- - TBD
+ - Swapped from deprecated `disutils.version` to `packaging.version`. PR [#79](https://github.com/smarie/mkdocs-gallery/pull/79) by [Samreay](https://github.com/Samreay)
 
 ### 0.7.8 - Bugfixes
 
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index 88b7ed94..daab6055 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ install_requires =
     mkdocs>=1,<2
     mkdocs-material
     tqdm
+    packaging
 tests_require =
     pytest
     # for some reason these pytest dependencies were not declared in old versions of pytest
diff --git a/src/mkdocs_gallery/py_source_parser.py b/src/mkdocs_gallery/py_source_parser.py
index 40097ee1..4f81ab8a 100644
--- a/src/mkdocs_gallery/py_source_parser.py
+++ b/src/mkdocs_gallery/py_source_parser.py
@@ -10,10 +10,10 @@
 from __future__ import absolute_import, division, print_function
 
 import ast
+import platform
 import re
-import sys
 import tokenize
-from distutils.version import LooseVersion
+from packaging.version import parse as parse_version
 from io import BytesIO
 from pathlib import Path
 from textwrap import dedent
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ def _get_docstring_and_rest(file: Path):
             'unless the file is ignored by "ignore_pattern"'
         )
 
-    if LooseVersion(sys.version) >= LooseVersion("3.7"):
+    if parse_version(platform.python_version()) >= parse_version("3.7"):
         docstring = ast.get_docstring(node)
         assert docstring is not None  # noqa  # should be guaranteed above
         # This is just for backward compat
diff --git a/src/mkdocs_gallery/scrapers.py b/src/mkdocs_gallery/scrapers.py
index 2017dc19..39476014 100644
--- a/src/mkdocs_gallery/scrapers.py
+++ b/src/mkdocs_gallery/scrapers.py
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 import os
 import re
 import sys
-from distutils.version import LooseVersion
+from packaging.version import parse as parse_version
 from pathlib import Path, PurePosixPath
 from textwrap import indent
 from typing import Dict, List, Optional
@@ -272,7 +272,7 @@ def _anim_md(anim, image_path, gallery_conf):
     thumb_size = gallery_conf["thumbnail_size"]
     use_dpi = round(min(t_s / f_s for t_s, f_s in zip(thumb_size, fig_size)))
     # FFmpeg is buggy for GIFs before Matplotlib 3.3.1
-    if LooseVersion(matplotlib.__version__) >= LooseVersion("3.3.1") and FFMpegWriter.isAvailable():
+    if parse_version(matplotlib.__version__) >= parse_version("3.3.1") and FFMpegWriter.isAvailable():
         writer = "ffmpeg"
     elif ImageMagickWriter.isAvailable():
         writer = "imagemagick"