Granting Developer Access to Cpanel

I would generally keep things in context of the scope of the work when considering security options ...

For something that is systems administrative / security type work then the scope needed would be general root access.

For web development, the scope would be just the web account where site content might be updated typically.

Now if you are talking about the later but don't want the web developer to have general access to your site, my suggestion would be to make them their own separate development account separate from your live production site and you can clone (copy) over relevant data and files to the development account. In this manner, you can also protect any potential confidential data or files as the developer in this case should be able to work from a duplicate test environment.

 

I won't allow it, but if you want, you can create him a ftp (sub)account from your cPanel and allow access only to site files (no cpanel access, no mails, settings etc). If he need mysql access, he can install phpmyadmin in this account.