I guess that LMDB is the root of the outstanding peformance. Check it out, it is an innovative key/value database that uses a memory-mapped db file, the OS cache, zero-copy on reads and copy-on-write.
Yes, LMDB is proved to be safe. It is used in many apps and even other DB implementations, including Monero.
What I have not tested is SQLite with WAL (Write-Ahead Log). In this case it may be faster than the default journal mode.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Memory-Mapped_Databa...