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Any tips, ideas and hints?
Should they be equal levels to the PCs? Same amount of adventurers? What makes a great rival party of adventurers? The game contains five level 8 PCs. Can I pit them against five level 8 NPCs?
I plan to make the rivals funny, introduce them one at a time to not instigate a fight, possible allies and not holding on to the PC's future treasure.
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Back when I used to read the ENWorld story hours, Piratecat mentioned that he had a group of rivals for his PCs and they picked up (at least some of) the adventure hooks that the PCs left hanging. So if the PCs didn't go and visit the lost caverns of Tsjocanth, they would get back to the tavern after the adventure they did do and sometimes find that people were talking about how the rival group explored those caverns and what loot they found.
Some other ideas: when the PCs are looking to buy a magic item, have it have been sold by a member of the rival group. (Or maybe the rival is actually the seller--they found a headband of Charisma +4 but their arcane caster is a wizard and they don't have a paladin or bard so what would they do with it?)
You could also have the PCs steal their rivals thunder sometimes. The PCs are partying it up at the tavern after having just killed a dragon and their rivals show up expecting everyone to be impressed that they just killed a wyvern. It would give the PCs a chance to rub their success into their rivals' noses for a change.
You could take a page from some of the NPC interactions in Neverwinter nights too. If the PCs have a wizard, maybe the rivals have a sorceress who is as proud of her looks as the wizard is studious. But you may want to vary that too. Maybe the rival cleric studied with the PC cleric but was always at the bottom of the class while the PC was at the top of the class. The rival cleric comes over and asks the PC for advice on moral dilemmas and tactics (because he dumped Int harder than the PC did :).
In order to make the world more credible and tie stories together, you might also consider making the membership of the rival group change from time to time. Maybe their rogue is always getting killed so every time they show up in the same town as the PCs, they have a new rogue or a pair of lower level rogues. What happened to Guido? Wyvern poison. Vinnie? A troll got the drop on him. At some point one member might leave their group and turn into a villain. The sorceress was always a bit shady--she left us in Magnimar after we got into an argument about her necromantic experiments. That way you can let a villain who might otherwise be generic sorceress #3 have a history with the players.
Basically, you have two great options on making rivals, make them antagonists, and make them "little siblings."
The Linear Guild trope is pretty well established, can make for some fun, and potentially deadly, encounters.
The Sibling rivalry route is a little less established, and more likely to lead to memorable RP events than battles.
Either way, they should somehow be tied to the PC's personal stories, and they should probably have a 1 to 1 ratio with the PC's, so everyone has a rival.