The filesystem should do files, if you want something more complex do it in userspace. We even have FUSE if you want to use the Filesystem API with your crazy network database thing.
The extended (not extant) family (including ext4) don't support copy-on-write. Using them as your primary FS after 2020 (or even 2010) is like using a non-journaling file system after 2010 (or even 2001)--it's a non-negotiable feature at this point. Btrfs has been stable for a decade, and if you don't like or trust it, there's always ZFS, which has been stable 20 years now. Apple now has AppFS, with CoW, on all their devices, while MSFT still treats ReFS as unstable, and Windows servers still rely heavily on NTFS.
Being able to quickly take a "backup" copy of some multi-gb directory tree before performing some potentially destructive operation on it is such a nice safety net to have.
It's also a handy way to backup file metadata, like mtime, without having to design a file format for mapping saved mtimes back to their host files.